The story of the Gen. Nelson M. Walker troopship began in 1997, when military artifact historian Art Beltrone first visited the "Ghost Fleet" on the James River in Virginia to assist with research for the World War II movie, The Thin Red Line. Once aboard the aging vessel, Beltrone found crowded troop compartments littered with hundreds of graffiti-marked bunk canvases, bulletin boards, and other historic artifacts left not by WWII troops headed for war in the Pacific, but by soldiers going to war in Southeast Asia a generation later. Beltrone's discovery led to extensive research about the Walker, which was first commissioned in 1945 and saw service in WWII, the Korean War, and Vietnam. Many of the artifacts, thanks to the work of the Beltrones, have been rescued from the ship and are now relocated in museums throughout the U.S., including the new National Museum of the United States Army, the Oakland Museum of California and the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian.