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Outbound soldiers' messages offer glimpses of the Vietnam war

Despite a decade of periodic searches, including inquiries by a Philadelphia detective, no one has located Little Ty. He was a soldier sent from Philadelphia to Vietnam in 1967, with the war in full fight and casualties mounting.

Detail from the old canvas bunks from the USNS General Nelson M. Walker troop transport ship in the library at the Independence Seaport Museum September 15, 2014. The museum is preparing to host the "Marking Time: The Voyage to Vietnam" exhibit in October on the voices of men who shared the boredom and dread of their ocean voyage by scrawling pictures and messages on the canvas sleeping racks as made their way across the sea toward war.  ( TOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer )
Detail from the old canvas bunks from the USNS General Nelson M. Walker troop transport ship in the library at the Independence Seaport Museum September 15, 2014. The museum is preparing to host the "Marking Time: The Voyage to Vietnam" exhibit in October on the voices of men who shared the boredom and dread of their ocean voyage by scrawling pictures and messages on the canvas sleeping racks as made their way across the sea toward war. ( TOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer )Read more

Despite a decade of periodic searches, including inquiries by a Philadelphia detective, no one has located Little Ty.

He was a soldier sent from Philadelphia to Vietnam in 1967, with the war in full fight and casualties mounting.

All that remains - all that can be found - is the message he scrawled on the bunk of the troop ship that carried him to war. And the voices of men who shared the dread and boredom of similar voyages.

"You're semi-relaxed because you're not in the war yet," said Army veteran George Stankovich, 67, of Matawan, N.J., "but you're nervous because you know you're going to be there."

Little Ty was among thousands shipped out aboard the USNS Gen. Nelson M. Walker, among hundreds who wrote on the underside of the canvas sleeping racks - notes of hope, fear, and longing from men headed toward a combat zone.

"Little Ty from 1-2 Poplar St. TenderLions, North Philly, slept here on his way to the war," Ty wrote, marking the date as Aug. 12, 1967. "Will be back Aug. 1968. See you at the Blue Sal!"

He was seen alive in Vietnam - a veteran recalls a chance encounter at a transit point - but after that, he seems to have vanished.

Beginning Oct. 3, the hunt for Little Ty - and for other local veterans who scribbled names and drawings in felt-tipped pen - will begin anew when the Independence Seaport Museum hosts "Marking Time: The Voyage to Vietnam."

The 22 canvases, nearly half marked by men from the Philadelphia area, capture soldiers at an exceptional moment, suspended between home and battle. At that point, surrounded by water, they found their lives with wives and children a memory, the looming war a projection.

"It's not just history," said Art Beltrone, the Virginia military historian who discovered the canvases. "It's humanity."

Many Vietnam-era soldiers flew to war, particularly those sent overseas in ones and twos as replacements. But when the Pentagon needed to deploy large numbers of men, or move entire units together, it used traditional troop ships.

The trip to Da Nang generally took 21 days - allowing troops plenty of time to draw on what were perfect sketchpads. A man lying on his back had about 18 inches between his chin and the bed above.

"North Phila., Pa.," one soldier wrote. "Bad Mo F-. Port Richmond, K+A. July 10-21, '67."

The canvas bearing Little Ty's words was claimed by the Smithsonian Institution and will be represented at the museum through photos.

The exhibit grew from Beltrone's Vietnam Graffiti Project, which spawned a book and website.

As the collection visited various cities, organizers used the scrawled names and dates to track down veterans. Sometimes they found names on a pale canvas rack that also appeared on the black granite wall in Washington.

Now they hope to find living veterans in Philadelphia. Maybe even Little Ty.

Accidental discovery

The graffiti on the Gen. Walker's bunks is different. It wasn't written on bathroom stalls or subway cars, intended to be seen by all.

It was aimed at a specific audience: men who, like the authors, were headed to war or returning from it.

"I made it," one soldier wrote. "I hope you make it. You'll know in 12 months."

Another wrote, "Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Good Town."

One soldier drew a portrait of a woman with large breasts - and the face of North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh. It was signed "Bobby" and dated Aug. 22, 1967.

"People say, 'Oh, it's just a bunch of graffiti, and it doesn't mean anything,' " said Craig Bruns, the seaport museum's chief curator. "To the contrary, this captured an emotional moment."

The graffiti were discovered by accident.

In the late 1990s, Beltrone was hired as a consultant on The Thin Red Line, a movie about the Battle of Guadalcanal in World War II. His job was to help production designer Jack Fisk ensure the accuracy of weapons and surroundings.

When a scene required a depiction of the inside of a troop ship, Fisk and Beltrone went hunting for one. They found the Gen. Walker on Virginia's James River, waiting to be scrapped.

The bunks had been tilted up to create space, revealing scribbled messages and grand cartoons dated 1967 and 1968.

Beltrone didn't see meaningless doodles. He saw important history. He's spent much of the last two decades examining, documenting, and sharing his find.

The Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, and museums of the Navy, Army, and Marine Corps all claimed canvases for their collections.

"Every one of these guys went to Vietnam," Beltrone said. "And some of them didn't come back. I wanted to make sure they were not forgotten."

Cramped quarters

An estimated 500,000 soldiers traveled to Southeast Asia aboard ships like the Gen. Walker, the conditions shaping their moods and markings.

The space was cramped, the trip long, the scenery monotonous. Yet three weeks at sea constituted a defined period of transition for men already torn from the comfort of their home's breakfast table but not yet deposited in a dangerous foreign land.

The Gen. Walker held up to 5,000 men. And its sleep racks weren't two-person bunk beds. They reached 10 and 12 high, requiring men on the upper levels to climb. The canvas was hard and rough, though at the time no one noticed.

"We were young," said Terry Williamson, 68, of Glenside, a former Marine Corps infantry officer who now heads the board of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial at Penn's Landing. He flew to and from the war but spent time on troop ships.

Stankovich, who, like Little Ty, sailed on the Gen. Walker, said life on board was mostly boring. But it also represented the last days of true safety.

Temperaments changed as Vietnam neared. Men who playfully flew kites from the deck at the start of the journey were by the end quiet and introspective. Judging by dates on the canvases, most men wrote their messages near the end of their trip.

"I think," said Stankovich, who served 19 months in Vietnam from 1967 to 1969, "they were trying to release some of their anxieties."

Deciphering the clues

On Aug. 10, 1967, the Gen. Walker departed Oakland, Calif, carrying the First and Second Squadrons of the First Cavalry, along with the 337th Signal Company and the 363d Transportation Company. It docked on Aug. 28.

Among the 2,200 troops was Little Ty.

Decades later, when Beltrone saw the canvas, he was struck by the optimism: Ty was so sure he'd survive the war, he was already planning a reunion.

That reference intrigued, too. Perhaps the meaning lay hidden within punctuation. Maybe "See you at the Blue Sal" meant "See you at the Blue, Sal" - the Blue Horizon, the famous boxing venue.

Ty gave his address as 1-2 Poplar St., but no such address existed in 1967.

Beltrone, a former journalist, and his wife, Lee, a photographer, searched the Internet for clues and contacted military associations and alumni groups. Eventually, in calls to Philadelphia, they were referred to John Buchanan, who possessed both sleuthing skills and street smarts.

Buchanan is retired after more than 25 years as a detective in the District Attorney's Office. His hypothesis: Little Ty belonged to a street gang. At the least, he was familiar with gang terminology.

Buchanan grew up in North Philadelphia during the 1950s and '60s, and joined the Police Department at age 19 in 1971. He recognized Ty's use of 1-2 Poplar St. to mean 12th and Poplar, and that "TenderLions" was no misspelling of "tenderloins."

Today, 12th and Poplar sits in trendy Northern Liberties, but in the late 1960s, it served as the corner hangout of a gang whose name was pronounced "Tender-Lines."

The Blue Sal, Buchanan said, probably was a physical meeting place, described by its nickname. "It could have been the front of a building, the blue Salvation Army building, or a store called Salvatore's that was blue," Buchanan said.

None of the old-timers he contacted in the area remembered anyone called Little Ty.

Beltrone's efforts yielded another clue: A call from a Philadelphia veteran who met Ty in Vietnam.

He was at a staging area, the man told Beltrone, when he noticed an African American soldier with "Philadelphia, Pa." on his helmet cover.

The veteran introduced himself, pleased to see someone from his hometown.

"My name is Little Ty," the man told him.

That was all. A minute later, they were headed in different directions, never to meet again.

Beltrone hasn't given up on finding Ty. Or at least on finding an answer to the mystery.

"We still have hope," Beltrone said. "I'd love to know what was on his mind."