“Death before Reenlistment”: Vandalism and Sabotage Onboard the USNS General John Pope

Abstract: The USNS General John Pope , which had ferried troops across the Pacific throughout World War II and the Korean War, was reactivated in August 1965 as a civilian-run ship of the Military Sea Transport Service. Although official histories of the Pope evoke a sense of pride, discipline, and martial prowess, four hundred vandalized canvas bunk beds taken from the ship and preserved by Texas Tech University’s Vietnam Graffiti Project tell an altogether different narrative of the years from 1965 to 1970. I argue that GI tagging and vandalism onboard the Pope not only functions as a subterranean archive of soldiers’ war experience but also falls in line with a larger pattern of soldiers’ resistance, which mobilized quotidian practices to sabotage military infrastructure and produce bonds of solidarity in the concomitant traditions of racial and working-class struggle. Ultimately, the present essay claims vandalism as both a form of revolt and a critically understudied resource for historical scholarship.