Vietnam veteran Dan O’Leary still remembers the day he departed from the western shores of the United States on a packed troopship to Vietnam, a 7,000-mile journey across the Pacific Ocean almost 45 years ago.
“We were all gung-ho coming out of Fort Hood, Texas,” said O’Leary, a West Orange native who was 21 when he was drafted for the Vietnam War in 1964. “We were going to kick butt and be back in six months, but it didn’t turn out that way. I was so happy to get off that troopship. The heat and the smell of that country. … I remember thinking to myself, ‘I’m not going to make it here.’ ”
During their voyage, soldiers slept on stacked canvas beds chained to the walls on the ship’s lower level, some with eight to 10 men per bunk. To pass the time, many played cards, read newspapers and listened to music — some also decided to leave their own mark on history.
Art Beltrone, co-curator, prepares a new exhibit, “Marking Time: Voyage to Vietnam,” from the Vietnam Graffiti Project, for its opening at the Vietnam Era Museum and Educational Center in Holmdel. The exhibit tells the story of soldiers traveling to Vietnam via troopship and the notes, drawings and cartoons they created on their canvas bunks while en route to Southeast Asia. PHOTOS BY FRANK GALIPO “We used to write on them,” said O’Leary, who recalls inscribing his name on the underside of his bunk’s canvas and on the walls of the ship.
Starting Sept. 1 through Nov. 30, a traveling exhibit titled “Marking Time: Voyage to Vietnam” at the Vietnam Era Museum and Educational Center in Holmdel will showcase notes, drawings and cartoons that soldiers like O’Leary wrote in their sleeping quarters while awaiting their arrival to the battlefields of southeastern Asia.
A cartoon expresses a soldier’s feelings about the war in Vietnam. FRANK GALIPO “This really brought back memories,” said O’Leary, who has been a volunteer at the museum for five years.
The exhibit, presented by co-curators Art and Lee Beltrone, founders of the Vietnam Graffiti Project, tells the story through words, scribbles and poems of young soldiers traveling to Vietnam by troopship with their Army units.
“We found girlfriends’ names, questions like ‘Will I return?,’ dates when they were expected to get out of the service,” Lee Beltrone said, explaining her findings. “They were on the ship and they hadn’t even got to Vietnam, and they were writing about when they were getting out. What we found too was a lot of calendars where they would keep track of how many days they spent aboard the ship. They marked their voyage on calendars.”
The origin of the exhibit began in 1997 when Art Beltrone, a formerMarine, visited the U.S. Navy’s “Ghost Fleet” off the coast of Virginia while doing production design research for the film “The Thin Red Line.” Beltrone and production designer Jack Fish discovered a P-2 troopship called the General Nelson M. Walker, a giant, decaying, 622- foot-long ship that once carried up to 5,000 soldiers and Marines at a time during World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War before being taken out of service in 1968 and scrapped in 2005.
After conducting research, Beltrone found out that troopships like the Walker transported 500,000 young soldiers and Marines on an 18- to 23-day voyage from California to Vietnam in 1965.
From there, the Beltrones and a team of volunteers found a treasure trove from a forgotten era, including military uniforms, personal accessories and countless hammock-style canvases with messages, names and dates.
The group worked for four years uncovering items from the Walker and then established the Vietnam Graffiti Project, a nonprofit that works to preserve the artifacts on the ship, including the graffiti-inscribed canvases.
Lee explained that the exhibit is not only educational, but also provides veterans and families with a way to connect with each other. Many who visit the exhibit notice names of people in their troop or names of loved ones.
One from a soldier in South Carolina read, “To my dear wife, Billie Armstrong, will I return?”
“Talk about poignant,” Beltrone said. “We have his canvas here in the exhibit. We found him [Armstrong], and he did return. We were able to show his wife the canvas that he had written on.”
Thanks to the ease of Web research, Lee said she and Art spend time on the Internet looking up names, states and other information about what they find written on the canvases. The Beltrones then use that information to help reunite troops and families.
“We found that many people return to the same area where they live. I checked into his name [Armstrong] in South Carolina and we were able to find him. We have moments like that which are really special.”
Both Art and Lee are anticipating similar moments at the museum and educational center in Holmdel.
“What we are hoping with these New Jersey canvases, maybe someone will come see the exhibit and recognize their name on the canvas,” she said.
The exhibit will also include a cell phone audio tour, enabling the public to hear voyage stories by Vietnam-bound soldiers and Marines in 1967.
Upon entry, a four-minute introductory film produced by the U.S. Naval Foundation will be displayed, featuring the troopship Walker during the voyages to Vietnam, as well as photographs and rock music from the era.
The exhibit has also made stops in cities across the country, including the Los Angeles Maritime Museum, the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond, and the United States Navy Memorial in Washington, D.C.
“What we like so much is that we are finding grandchildren coming with their grandfathers to see this,” Beltrone said. “Their grandfathers are talking to them about [the Vietnam War] for the first time. It’s about healing for the men and for the families.”
Lee explained the exhibit is emotional for some veterans, but the significance of their journey lives on.
“It bring backs a lot of memories for the men,” she said. “A lot of men come home from war and push their memories away. [Coming home], they were treated very poorly. It still bothers a lot of the men. It was unfair, unnecessary and uncalled for and should never have happened, but it did. This [exhibit] to us is so important to honor them and thank them for their service, which was never done.”
The Vietnam Era Museum and Educational Center is located off Exit 116 of the Garden State Parkway. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information about the Vietnam Graffiti Project, visit http://www.vietnamgraffiti. com.