In his final days, Joe Ulatoski solves 50-year mystery

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, April 8, 2026

A perplexing puzzle recently traversed 55 years and 18 time zones to reach Vashon Island.

The story begins with a 2024 Voice of Vashon radio series called “Letters From Vietnam.” Dr. Steven Nourse, the host interviewed retired Brig. Gen. and Vashonite Joseph Ulatoski about his experiences in Vietnam, where he commanded the 2nd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division.

After the show became available via streaming, the station got an email from the National Vietnam Veterans Museum on tiny Phillip Island, off the coast of Australia.

An official with the museum said they “listened with interest” to the interview and sent a 55-year-old photo of then-U.S. Army Col. Ulatoski unveiling an elephant skull for what appeared to be a lighthearted “presentation” of some kind.

Over time, the item’s backstory was lost, and both the photo and skull languished on a shelf in a small Army-run museum at Keswick Barracks in South Australia, never displayed or researched.

“There must be an amazing story behind this enormous and unusual piece of war memorabilia,” wrote museum collections officer Wendy Anderson. “It now falls to me to find out what that story is.”

Voice of Vashon then learned that Ulatoski, a longtime islander and noted founder of VashonBePrepared, recently moved to an assisted living facility in Seattle. When his daughters, Lauren and Kari, showed him the photo and Anderson’s letter, Ulatoski immediately recalled the incident and took great delight in dictating the story.

Three days after writing and editing his memory of the mysterious elephant skull, he fell asleep in his chair and lost consciousness. Five days later, on March 20, Ulatoski died at 98.

On the same day Ulatoski became unresponsive, the life of the Voice of Vashon radio host whose interview with Ulatoski brought the story to light was being celebrated at Vashon Center for the Arts.

Longtime educator and Voice of Vashon producer Nourse had died the previous month on Feb. 2. He was 77.

Nourse had originally planned to record just a dozen or so interviews with Vietnam veterans, but when word spread about an opportunity for vets to tell their stories on the radio, the series quickly grew to nearly 50 stories, including interviews and letters.

Testimonials flowed at Nourse’s memorial about his endless curiosity, especially around collecting stories from war veterans. No doubt he’d have loved that one of his interviews would help unravel a mystery percolating on another island 8,200 miles away.

Which brings us to the story of Sabu. That’s the name bestowed upon the elephant skull Ulatoski unveiled with a flourish to Australian Brig. Gen. W.G. Henderson some 55 years earlier.

“There was a good bit of camaraderie between units serving adjacent to one another,” Ulatoski wrote.

According to newspaper archives uncovered in the course of researching this story, the Australians had spotted elephant tracks during a reconnaissance flight in Phuoc Tuy province. This led them to suspect that the Viet Cong were using elephants to haul equipment through the jungle.

Their skeptical American counterparts, led by Ulatoski, insisted that no elephants had been used in the region for quite some time. Sure enough, the sighting later turned out to be a lone elephant that had wandered too far on a solo foraging mission.

The false alarm led to a flood of elephant-related gags between Henderson and Ulatoski, including an airborne leaflet drop over U.S. headquarters by the Australians bearing a drawing of a smiling elephant with the phrase, “Elephants are beautiful.”

When it was Ulatoski’s turn to retaliate, one of his units in the 2nd Brigade came across an elephant skull while patrolling in the jungle, “providing an opportunity to take the banter to the next level,” Ulatoski wrote.

As his Australian counterpart was briefing the Australian minister of defense in Nui Dat, Ulatoski interrupted the proceedings.

“I’m expecting the Aussies to come up with the ultimate weapon in this campaign,” Col. Ulatoski declared, “but I’ve got the answer to that, too.”

He then pulled back the cover on the full-size elephant skull. His unit’s crest was affixed to the smiling elephant drawing the Aussies had dropped on the Americans, along with the words, “I agree! Elephants are beautiful.”

“The presentation was received in absolutely good spirits,” Ulatoski remembered. “During my tenure in Vietnam, it was a pleasure to work with the Australian Brigade. They were fine soldiers in every sense and deserve nothing but high praise for their service.”

Well, high praise and the three bales of hay Ulatoski later had delivered to Henderson’s Australian base in Vietnam. The accompanying card was signed, “From Sabu.”

“So he could feed the elephant,” Ulatoski wrote a week before he died.

Ulatoski’s final remembrance of the story helped the museum in Australia fill in some missing blanks through additional museum archives.

Collections Officer Anderson said, “The response has made me both laugh and cry. How privileged I am, way down here on our little island at the bottom of the world, to have been able to hear the story from Brigadier General Ulatoski during his final days on earth.”

As of this writing, Sabu is about to make its way to the National Vietnam Veterans Museum on Phillip Island, not far from parkland trails and beaches where wallabies, koalas and penguins can be spotted. “When Sabu arrives, he/she will become a permanent exhibit,” Anderson said, “along with the story and the photograph.”

How fitting that, among all the honors and distinctions for which Ulatoski will be celebrated in the wake of his passing, it is his sense of humor that will be forever remembered in a museum on the other side of the world. And it only happened because of a radio conversation between two island luminaries who would each take their last breath just months later.

It is a fitting final testament to the power of camaraderie between nations fighting side by side in times of war. Once upon a while ago, that was a thing.

Jeff Hoyt is a writer, voice actor, and long-time Program Manager for Voice of Vashon community radio.