War Bonds: Artist Shares Unity Between Man & Dog in Vietnam

Prolific painter, Vietnam veteran and Eastport resident John Melillo returns to Southampton Cultural Center this month for his third Life Goes On exhibition to coincide with Veterans Day.

Melillo, who served as an MP (Military Police) at Long Binh Post — a massive U.S. base in Vietnam — from 1970–1972, has completed hundreds of paintings depicting everything from bucolic Long Island landscapes and pet portraits to scenes from his time overseas.

He began his art career late in life, when, after retiring from 45 years in marketing and development in 2017, long suppressed memories of his time in the war began flooding back. It quickly became clear that Melillo was suffering from PTSD and he needed an activity to lift him out of the murk and darkness of his painful past.

That’s when a VA aptitude test directed him toward visual art and he proceeded to take every class and workshop he could.

Melillo, now 75, says his war experiences were keeping him up at night, and flashbacks, which he calls “daymares,” were even polluting his waking hours. But making art really helped, and he was getting quite good at it.

It’s a story he’s told for the last couple of years, since his first Life Goes On exhibition opened at the Southampton Cultural Center in 2021, followed by Part 2 in November of last year — both featuring multiple paintings and a video his daughter Beth Melillo produced to tell each part of his story.

The first show included oils reproducing photographs he’d taken during the war, especially those attached to difficult or poignant moments, such as “In Remembrance of Chris,” which showed a patrol Jeep with mounted machine gun in relation to a young man who took Melillo’s place on patrol one night and died four minutes into the mission. The second exhibition, however, turned the focus onto what he called “a lighter side of Vietnam.”

Now, Melillo returns with an exhibition dedicated to King, a very special German shepherd from the K-9 unit who he bonded with during night patrols in the jungle.

“Part three is going to be completely different from the other two,” Melillo says. “It’s all about camaraderie, friendship, courage, honor, heroics, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t recount one of the most notable and significant things that I encountered in my Vietnam tour — for that matter my whole life,” he explains. “My hope for doing so is I might finally have some closure to help me deal with my PTSD condition, because this is really a major part of it and I’ve kind of shunned away from it before.”

Melillo admits he’s not really a dog person, but his bond with King went beyond that. “We became kindred spirits. I worked with two K-9 units on night shift … we had 16 different canines and had eight different handlers, and I only worked with this dog named King.”

He points out that “we’re all animals” in the jungle, and the bonds are strong, whether between human beings or man and animal. “Everything is heightened around you,” Melillo adds, noting that soldiers in combat had to rely on instinct, reacting without thinking and becoming completely in sync with their surroundings.

It is these kinds of circumstances that Melillo says led to his deep connection with King, despite him not being the dog’s handler. “We knew what we were both thinking, he would never leave my side if we were working,” Melillo continues. “He saved me either from death or extreme bodily harm at least six times, and probably another six almost.”

Visitors to his show will get to see the latest 16-minute Life Goes On video, hear at least three stories of King’s heroics and their connection, and learn what happened to Melillo and the dog before the conclusion of his tour.

Along with his Vietnam-related artwork, Melillo is introducing a number of new paintings in Life Goes On: Part 3, including some fresh Long Island scenes, patriotic images and some more unique and colorful creations that are quite outside the box compared to his previous pieces, like the somewhat surreal “Beauties & the Beach In the Hamptons.”

But his healing through art remains at the core of it all, and he believes others can find peace from doing what they love.

“Our message is global, we all have our Vietnam, whether it’s a death in the family, a bad relationship, an illness, an accident — whatever,” Melillo says, pointing out that trauma, and even PTSD, is not only reserved for war veterans.

“I looked up the statistics. They say one in every three people in this world has some traumatic experience that never goes away, and that’s PTSD. It’s something you can’t cure. You just have to learn to deal with it, so our global message now is, the way to deal with infirmities like that is do something good for yourself. Do something where it focuses on you alone — if you like to dance, dance. If you like sing, join a choir or a chorus. If you like to paint or draw, take up a class. If you like to read, join a book club. If you like to fish, go fishing. Whatever gives you self-worth may give you solace.”

John Melillo’s Life Goes On: Part 3 opens with a reception Friday from noon–4 p.m. and is on view through November 26 at Southampton Cultural Center in Southampton Village (25 Pond Lane). Learn more at scc-arts.org. To see more of John Melillo’s work, visit @artfeelingsjm on Instagram or artfeelingsjm.com.