The General Nelson M. Walker was first named the U.S.S. Admiral H. T. Mayo, a naval ship built in 1945 that weighed nearly 10,000 tons and carried up to 5,000 troops at a haul to and from ports during World War II, including a group of over 5,800 released prisoners of war from Le Havre, France, to Boston. The ship changed hands and names multiple times, becoming the General Nelson M. Walker in time for the Korean War, from which she (Note: Despite the name, the Naval Historical Center describes ships as feminine vessels) brought home the first batch of American P.O.W.s.
 Bobby loves Susie: Art and Lee Beltrone open an exhibit of graffiti-covered bunk canvases from a Vietnam War ship at the Albemarle County Office Building and the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society, including this piece, titled “Vietnam Susie,” and another with possible ties to Charlottesville. |
Zeb Armstrong loved a woman more than he loved the General Nelson M. Walker, but had his doubts in August, 1967, during his three-week stay aboard the ship. Armstrong had left his young wife, Billie, in their home of Clover, South Carolina, and was part of a collection of thousands headed to Vietnam aboard the Walker.
Time was passed by playing cards, listening to music and drawing. A few Avery Dennison “Marks-A-Lot” black pens made their rounds through the bunks, columns of tan canvases in stacks of four, rigged to steel rods connected to the floor and ceiling.
Passengers made use of the markers on the canvases, most drawing while sprawled on their backs, soft tip of the black markers pressing into the fabric above them, which bowed under the weight of a soldier. One image, by a shipmate of Armstrong’s identified only as “Bobby,” depicts a sprawling pin-up with a wispy beard, titled “Vietnam Susie.”
At some hour before his arrival in Vietnam, Armstrong uncapped the Marks-A-Lot, pressed up and against the fabric looming low overhead and began to write.
Unknown soldier
Military artifact historian Art Beltrone and his wife, Lee, moved to Virginia 30 years ago from Long Island, New York, and live on a farm adjacent to Keswick Vineyards. In 1997, Art Beltrone was assisting production designer Jack Fisk (husband of Sissy Spacek) on Terrence Malick’s film update of The Thin Red Line (in addition to films like David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, Fisk has collaborated with Malick on numerous movies, from Days of Heaven to The New World). Beltrone accompanied Fisk to the Walker, part of the Maritime Administration’s reserve fleet in the James River and, in digging through bits and pieces of the boat, discovered bunk canvases crawling with graffiti scrawls, including this bit of text:
“Zeb Armstrong. Clover, S.C. 8/16/67. Viet Nam bound. Billie Armstrong, my dear wife…Will I return???”
| Listen to an audio sample documenting Vietnam graffiti writers
|
Art and Lee contacted the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian and more to gauge interest in their find, then began to make trips as often as three or four times each year to the Walker. The couple received support from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities (VFH) and interest from local multimedia production company Paladin Media Group, which began documenting video and audio footage of the Beltrones’ efforts to salvage the wartime art and the veterans behind it.
The total collection numbers 150 canvases, but a limited collection goes on display at the Albemarle County Office Building from January 8 through 11 before moving to a longer exhibit at the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society, titled “Marking Time: Voyage to Vietnam.” (A book and CD under the same name are available at paladinpictures.com; the CD is also available at Plan 9 Records.)
Now, standing in a light-colored wood extension of his country-rustic home, Art Beltrone leads Curtain Calls through a few canvases, holding them up with Lee’s help. An exceptionally gifted artist identified as “Pallon” used up the length of his neighbor’s canvas with illustrations of Charles Schulz’s “Charlie Brown” character in a series of increasingly xenophobic versions, rounded eyes turning to diagonal slits, the exclamation “Oh Good Grief” turning to “Oh So” and then to “So Solly.” The final image shows Brown’s head peering from a pot of boiling water, shouting for help.
Most of the illustrations list basic statistics: Name, hometown and ETS, or “Estimated Time of Service”—educated guesses made by the soldiers. Others are attempts at realism gone awry, like “Vietnam Susie,” or humorous or gross interpretations of the war; in one, a man in a business suit with an expressively exaggerated face places a phone call to hotel room service to cancel an order of chicken salad. His feet dangle out of an open window.
Lee Beltrone, who photographed the Walker as well as the canvases and the couple’s trips to the ship, calls the collection a cross section of the troops sent to Vietnam (although it occurs to Curt that the use of a draft in Vietnam makes it a slightly limited cross section). You can imagine, therefore, the odds of finding a connection to Charlottesville among a random sample, but that’s precisely what Art and Lee found: One canvas reads, in ballpoint pen rather than black marker, “Miko Okinawa,” “Charlottesville Virginia,” then simply “Bill.”
The exhibit at the Historical Society will most likely extend through February, according to Art. More impressive, Paladin and VFH outfitted the exhibit with a telephone tour (accessible now through the exhibit’s end; try it by calling 422-9044). Though the exhibit at the Historical Society will offer more canvases, Art says that the purpose of the show at the County Office Building is to try to find out the identity of Charlottesville’s “Bill.”
Curt tries his hand at the phone tour and dials “9#” after the prompt to access a chapter called “Graffiti Writers.” The first person interviewed on the tour is Zeb Armstrong, who is still married to Billie.
SWAG Bag
Curt is gearing up for a few brilliant book events, ready to reinvigorate his literary credentials with signings by University of Virginia MFA graduates in poetry on January 18 (Michael Chitwood, Davis McCombs) and a former MA candidate in English-turned-pop culture aficionado for Rolling Stone magazine (Rob Sheffield, author of Love is a Mixtape) on January 22 at New Dominion Bookstore. He also has a few thoughts on the line-up for March’s Virginia Festival of the Book, but watch this space for more in the coming weeks (hysteria makes CC long-winded).
However, on the subject of hysteria (his, not the author’s), Curt received a copy of Rita Mae Brown’s latest “Mrs. Murphy” mystery, The Purrfect Murder (due in hardcover February 5), written in conjunction with her clever and, presumably, dexterous cat, Sneaky Pie Brown.
The real mystery to CC, however, remains unsolved: Rita Mae and Sneaky Pie have been co-authoring books since 1990’s Wish You Were Here and already have plans for No. 17 (due in 2009). It’s morbid, yes, but Curt thinks the right sleuth could turn up a number of, erm, former “Sneaky Pies.” Or has fame simply prolonged the original feline’s life?
This, readers, is what Curt thinks about.
