VT Stories Oral History with Douglas Beaver, September 16, 2016 (Ms2016-015)

Jenny Nehrt: What is your name and today?

Douglas Beaver: My name is Douglas J. Beaver. It's the 16th of September 2016.

Nehrt: Wonderful. Where were you born?

Beaver: I was born in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Nehrt: What years did you go to Tech and what did you study?

Beaver: I got to Tech in 1987 and graduated in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a minor in history.

Nehrt: Tell me about Honolulu, Hawaii. How long did you live there?

Beaver: So, my father was in the navy and he was a submariner. There's a big submarine base, Pearl Harbor, in Honolulu. So in 1968 he was commanding officer of a submarine and my older brother, 3½ years older was there, and I was born on February 8th in Tripler Army Hospital in Honolulu.

Nehrt: What was your family like?

Beaver: I think your typical navy family. I had one older brother. My mom didn't 1:00work, so we moved quite a bit. After living in Honolulu we moved to Japan. From there we moved to Washington, DC, up to Newport, Rhode Island, San Diego, Philippines, back to DC, Germany, and then they settled in DC in the mid-80s.

Nehrt: That's a lot of moving, wow.

Beaver: It is a lot of moving.

Nehrt: Do you have a favorite place that you lived in?

Beaver: San Diego was probably one of the nicest temperature and climate areas, but certainly Germany as far as my first three years of high school were there and I made a lot of great friends. I traveled all over Europe, so if you had to pin me down I would say living in Bonn, Germany in the 80s was fantastic.

Nehrt: What did you do and where did you travel? What kind of activities were there?

Beaver: I played sports, and I was also in the drama club. I was in every club, anything that involved traveling, so we would go to Rome with the youth 2:00ministry. We went to London with the drama club. I went to Belgium and Netherlands playing sports. We actually made a trip to the Soviet Union in 1984 when the iron curtain was still up, so it was pretty neat to do that.

Nehrt: Yeah, what was that trip like?

Beaver: It was amazing. I was going between my sophomore and junior years in high school, and we were part of an American Express tour group, but since my father was in the navy we had to do extra juggling to make sure he was allowed to do the trip. But we brought a 3-foot long plastic Christmas tree because it was over the Christmas holidays and the Soviet guards really didn't know what to think of it they went through our luggage, but we celebrated Christmas in Moscow and it was pretty neat.

Nehrt: Cool. So with all that traveling how did you end up at Virginia Tech?

Beaver: A great question. I actually originally wanted to go to the Naval 3:00Academy and I submitted an application and was accepted to the Naval Academy Prep School, where I went and walked on the basketball team, and probably didn't study quite enough, as much as I needed to I should say. In my senior year I had applied to Tech and VMI and the Naval Academia up from northern Virginia, and I knew of Blacksburg and I knew of Virginia Tech, so I made sure I had another application in in case I didn't get an offer to the Naval Academy, which I did not, so I came to Blacksburg in 1987 and the rest is history.

Nehrt: What was your first memory of Tech?

Beaver: My first memory of Tech, so I was in the Corps of Cadets and I remember coming for orientation, and a junior cadet by the name of Tracy Carter, who I later served with, probably 15 years after graduating from Tech he was in the Air Force ROTC, I was navy, but he was the first one to show me around Rasche 4:00Hall, Brodie Hall, the dining facility. I just remember coming down the main drag there off of Main Street and looking at the Lane Hall and the drillfield, feeling like this would be a great place to go to school for 4 years, so it was a great campus feel.

Nehrt: It's a beautiful campus, yeah. Did you have to come early for ROTC training?

Beaver: Not for ROTC but for new cadet training. So they march you right across the street right next to Mike's Grill there. There's a barber shop. In fact it's still there; I just saw it last night because I was walking around, and we got our heads shaved and then we went back and learned how to salute and march and go from a civilian life to a pseudo military life in a civilian university.

Nehrt: Was it much of a transition being a navy brat?

Beaver: Not as much for the others. My classmates probably had a much tougher 5:00time. I certainly had grown up around the military, so that rank structure and discipline and things like that weren't alien to me. However, additionally having gone to the Naval Academy Prep School for a year where I was enlisted in the U.S. Navy, so I was well prepared for the military side. I was more concerned on studying hard and making sure I did well academically, which I did and picked up a 3½-year NROTC scholarship. So they offer 4-year and back then they offered 2-year, and then there was a short period where if you did well academically they would pick you up right away. And so I worked hard and got a scholarship, which my parents were quite happy with that.

Nehrt: Yeah, I bet. Did you have notable professors or influential professors in your time here?

Beaver: You know it's been so long so I couldn't tell you their names, but 6:00probably with the exception of my Civil War professor. His first name was Bud, but he brought the Civil War to life especially living here in Virginia. He used to read letters from, he used to say Johnny Reb and Billy Yank, and he would read about a battle and then we would go into the battle in significance, but sitting in McBryde Hall with hundreds of other classmates sometimes it didn't seem like we would be able to make that personal connection. But he was just amazing. He could get an audience completely engrossed in what he was saying. Once again, I don't remember the professors' name, but my other two classes that had an impact on me were Constitutional Law. I took a year of that. I was a political science major, and hearing the oral arguments of the dissenting opinion and then the majority opinion. You typically read the dissenting opinion first and you would think logically that that's the right answer and it makes 7:00complete sense. And then you would hear the majority opinion that carried the day and you would be…well they blew their arguments out of the water and that's why it was the majority opinion. So, Civil War history and then the Constitutional Law were sort of the highlights of why I was here. And the Berlin Wall was coming down while I was here too, so as a political science major just picking up the newspaper every day I was reading history, so very interesting times.

Nehrt: Yeah. Especially since you've been there.

Beaver: Right.

Nehrt: The inside look.

Beaver: Exactly.

Nehrt: Did your Civil War professor influence you in getting the history minor or did you already want it?

Beaver: I think since I enjoyed the class and I think after that I took World War II History, I think all of those things, I mean that was a very popular class and I was not disappointed. So I wanted to keep pursuing, since I had enough credits I might as well just get a minor in history while I was here.

Nehrt: Did you have any mentors in the Corps?

Beaver: Um, well I had some classmates who were in older classes. I don't know necessarily if they were mentors, so some of the folks that are coming in this weekend to celebrate our anniversary, one of my friends who I just mentioned he's a 90 grad, so he was a year older class-wise, but we were peers as far as our age. Once again probably not a mentor, but we were coming… We came at issues typically on the opposite sides of the spectrum politically and…well mostly politically. So we would argue. He was an aerospace engineer. I was a poly sci major and we had spirited debates and we're still friends all these years later, so while not a mentor story it's more of a you learn through having 9:00to express yourself and defend your opinions, and we certainly went after each other many times, and still do.

Nehrt: Nothing wrong with a spirited debate.

Beaver: Right.

Nehrt: Were most of your friends in the Corps or were you able to kind of branch out in your classes?

Beaver: No, I had some Corps classmates who were also affiliated with fraternities and since I was in ROTC I wanted to stay focused on academics. I did do intramural sports through the Corps of Cadets. We had a basketball team and played softball. Most of my friends, I would 80 or 90% of them were in the Corps. Every now and then I would meet someone in the class that I would hang out with, but most of my friends were in the Corps.

Nehrt: I didn't know they had intramural sports. That's awesome. I was walking by I think a volleyball game the other night with the Cadets playing, which was cool to see. It sounds like you were really busy.

Beaver: I was, and I just participated in the gunfighter panel this weekend 10:00which is why I came in early, in preparation to talk to cadets and young students who are 25 years removed from my experience. I read the new cadet guide which basically spells out what your freshman year is going to be like in the Corps. It's a 76-page PDF document that has every minute detail of what their life is going to be like. I considered it a little bit overwhelming. A lot is expected of students these days and it gets pushed even into high school. I have a 16-year-old daughter who is taking EP classes and college credit and I never even thought of doing that kind of thing when I was in high school. It just wasn't necessary.

Nehrt: Yeah. It's a lot. You must be very disciplined in order to be in the Corps it seems.

Beaver: Yes, and that's the exact word of what my experience was in the Corps, is to teach discipline and the value of hard work and I think that's kind of 11:00carried with me throughout my career in the navy. But there was a Virginia State police officer who spoke yesterday as well, and so even if you're not in the military, if you're in a law enforcement type work that discipline carries over to that as well.

Nehrt: Yeah, absolutely. We've had some other Corps alumni talk about their rate year. How was your rat year?

Beaver: So once again for me it was a little bit different because I had just come from being enlisted in the navy, so I was of the same age as the people who were trying to teach me how to become military, so that part wasn't very difficult for me. But what it did and what it did when I was in the navy when you bring someone from the civilian life in the military in a small unit you tend to bond. You develop friendships. You learn to trust one another, and you look at things a bit differently than you did as just someone showing up for a 12:00class and not knowing who is next to you or who the person is down the hall. When you end up doing push-ups every day and leg lifts and running and sweating and memorizing things and doing team things, you really develop sort of special relationships with. So that's the whole point of the cadet, the new cadet year, the freshman year is to have that bond and then learn the value of that team work and hard work.

Nehrt: Great. Do you have any favorite memories while you were here?

Beaver: Favorite memories, certainly marching from here over to the football games. Back then we had the best seats in the house. We're at the 50-yard line right behind the visiting team, so granted we didn't have -- I think it was the second year that Frank Beamer was here, so I will probably get it wrong, but I remember going 3 and 8 or something like that for the first couple of years. We did a lot of cheering, not a lot of scoring, not a lot of winning, but it was 13:00fun. I enjoyed doing that and my parents would come down for a weekend and we would tailgate by the duckpond. I just walked by there today. It's so many more buildings and things like that out toward… It used to be just cow pastures, and now there's parking lots and fraternity houses and the like, so some of the fond memories for me was my parents visiting for football games. Certainly walking across the drillfield when it was snow on the ground and having to get all the way over to my biology class which was all the way on the other side of campus.

And unfortunately, I think freshman year I also injured my ankle, so I was on crutches for a while, and there's nothing more uncomfortable than having to be in the… They gave you these ugly drab green uniforms to wear when you couldn't wear the gray pants and the white shirts which you see most of the cadets in. So they were called utilities, and I had crutches to try to get all the way across 14:00campus was painful.

Nehrt: That sounds really rough.

Beaver: It was not fun.

Nehrt: No. Oh my gosh. I can't imagine being on crutches on this campus period. It's so huge.

Beaver: Right.

Nehrt: Your family did they come down to visit a lot?

Beaver: I would say at least twice a year for football games, and then maybe again in the spring when the weather was warmer and it was more enjoyable to come visit. We would typically stay up in Mountain Lake. They would get either a cottage or stay there at the main lodge, back when there was a lake. Once again, I had my family up there last year and it's a different view shed if you will since there's no water. But reading the history of it it's sick like hundreds of years where it will dry up and the water will fill back up and then it will drain, so eventually it will be like we were able to experience it back in the late 80s and the early 90s.

Nehrt: Yeah, hopefully. I took my dad up there and he like almost cried. He was 15:00so like, "Oh no."

Beaver: I didn't even realize the geological aspect of it is that it's natural, so eventually all those crevices that allow the water in the lake to escape will seal themselves. Granted there has to be enough rainfall to allow the lake to regenerate, but it did sound like it was a regeneration process, so maybe someday. Maybe when you bring your kids here.

Nehrt: Hopefully. I can be expected… Yeah. Did you hike with your family when you were up there?

Beaver: We did, absolutely. That's a great part of going to school in southwest Virginia, there and then the Jefferson National Forest and Lake, what was it -- [Pathathakis]?

Nehrt: Hmm.

Beaver: Yes. In fact, when I had my family here last year we actually walked around the lake. I had a lot of fond memories of Sunday afternoons being tired of studying and me and my buddies or girlfriend go out and walk around the lake, 16:00and it was just very peaceful.

Nehrt: Yeah, that sounds great.

Beaver: Yeah.

Nehrt: Did you guys do that a lot?

Beaver: Frequently. I mean we would, we had a camping trip that we would go out in Jefferson National Forest. We were in Echo Company, which we called commonly as E-frat or E-fraternity, because it felt like a fraternity. We did silly things and had fun, played sports, all those things that fraternities do as well, and to include projects for the community and things like that. So we would go camping in the Jefferson National Forest, so yeah, it was great times. One other event that we did which was particularly enjoyable was rafting on the New River. We would get innertubes and food and just go down the river. If we wanted to stop we would stop and eat, a good time.

Nehrt: Yeah, that's so much fun.

Beaver: It was a blast.

Nehrt: There's just so many good places to do it now too. Cool. Did you do any other extracurriculars outside of Corps or it was Corps enough?

Beaver: Well the Corps of Cadets and the navy, those were the two big things and then the intramural sports, so that was about it. That's all I had time for.

Nehrt: That sounds like plenty. This next question is a little cheesy, but bear with me. When you hear the words Virginia Tech what does it make you think of?

Beaver: The first thing that comes to mind is burnt orange and Chicago maroon. It's football. It's student comradery. It's Hokie Stone. It's Main Street. It's the drillfield. It's for me Rasche Hall and the Corps of Cadets. It's all those things.

Nehrt: Great. How has Virginia Tech influenced you since you left if it has?

Beaver: Since I've left. Well being in the military I've kind of bounced around a bit, so it's not like I'm up the road in Bristol or down the road in Bristol or up the road in Roanoke, so my experience has been watching Hokie football on the television, and then about every 3 years or so trying to get my friends and my classmates together to come back and let's go to a football game so we can tell old stories and reminisce and feel young again being on campus. But I haven't been back that frequently, so it's just due to being in the military and being stationed in Nevada, Tennessee, and then Washington, DC, I got a chance to come down here.

Nehrt: Yeah. Understandable. After you graduated you went into naval flight officer training, right?

Beaver: Yes, correct.

Nehrt: How was that?

Beaver: So I drove from here to Pensacola, Florida in it would have been July or 19:00August of '91, and it was… You do initial training down there, it takes about a year and you learn to fly on some small single propeller airplanes, and then you start flying in jet airplanes. I'm a navigator. That's what a naval flight officer did. I learned how to navigate, and then I was down there for a year and then I moved up to Norfolk, Virginia, and learned to fly in the ETC Hawkeye, which is what I've been flying in for the past 24 years.

Nehrt: Wow. Pensacola is beautiful.

Beaver: It is beautiful.

Nehrt: It sounds like a great place to be for a year.

Beaver: It has the nicest beaches, the very white crystalized sand, and I've been fortunate enough to sail around the world and see many different beaches, and I think Pensacola always comes back as the nice and wide, and the sand, it's white and it's beautiful, really beautiful.

Nehrt: Yeah. The national park is so gorgeous.

Beaver: It is.

Nehrt: I have read online in my Google search that you have logged more than 2,900 flight hours in 10 different aircraft types. That's a lot of work.

Beaver: Well, it's about average for someone who has been in the navy as long as I have, but for me after I flew primarily in the ETC Hawkeye of those 2,900 probably 2,600 or almost 2,700 are in the ETC Hawkeye. The other remaining, when I lived in Fallon, Nevada I was at the weapons school, so I had the opportunity to fly in the F18 E6B, a bunch of other different naval, as well as marine aircrafts, so that's how I got up to the 10 aircrafts, but mostly it was an ETC.

Nehrt: Do you have a favorite thing that you've flown, or is it all just invigorating?

Beaver: Well, flying in the F18 is probably the highlight. It's a wonderful jet 21:00and flying in Sierra, Nevada when you're going up and down mountain ranges, going upside down the way you fly over a hill as you fly up one side and you turn inverted and you pull down the other side until you're about 500 feet, put your wings around and then off you go, so flying the F18 was amazing.

Nehrt: I don't think I have the stomach for it. Wow.

Beaver: I just noticed I have my Fallon shirt on. I didn't know that was going to be a segway.

Nehrt: Oh that's funny. That's great. How did you meet your wife? Is she also in the navy?

Beaver: No. I actually met her through a friend. So a squadron mate of mine was dating a girl who was a Virginia Beach schoolteacher and she was friends with my future wife, Alexis, who worked for a healthcare company in Virginia Beach. She was a Penn State grad and started working for Blue Cross Blue Shield in the Virginia Beach, and we met because we were all kind of socializing together and 22:00met and hit it off.

Nehrt: Great. You have kids?

Beaver: We do. We have a 16-year-old daughter Anna and a 14-year-old son Adam.

Nehrt: Wonderful. What's it like coming back to Virginia Tech? You said you haven't come back that often, but when you do obviously the changes are constantly occurring. What's it like seeing that?

Beaver: So it's an interesting question, because one of my former roommates who came in this weekend, he's a professor at Temple University and he started off describing his feelings and it's almost mirrored mine. For the first 5 years when you come back you still feel part of the campus. You still feel like you were meant to be here. And then for me, for the next 5 to 10 years I didn't get 23:00back very often, and so now when I came in this time it just hit me how many new buildings and how different campus looks and it feels, but I think if we were to stay here long enough it would feel like the Virginia Tech of old. That's my belief, but I mean the building I spent 4 years in, Rasche Hall is gone. The drillfield, the main drag there did not have the library bridge across it, so you had an unimpeded view of the ut prosim pylons. So I think the cumulative changes kind of hit me and my classmate when we came back this time, and since it has been 25 years what should we expect of course. There's a new student center. In fact, when I came into town I went to where the Virginia Tech Inn was a long time ago, and it moved I guess. I had to open up my window and say where is the Virginia Tech Inn, because it used to be right here.

And so it moved in 2006, but I hadn't stayed here since then, so I had not realized it moved all the way out here. Which it doesn't even feel that far anymore. This used to be, we would never even walk this far. We would drive if we came up on campus, but now it's just why would we not be able to walk? But yeah, a lot of changes.

Nehrt: Yeah. Do you think they are mostly good changes?

Beaver: Oh absolutely. Once again, you're trying to attract and keep the best students in the area, and the international students as well, so you need the infrastructure. You need to be able to keep up with other universities out there, so absolutely. It's completely for the right reasons.

Nehrt: Do you think there are any changes you would like to see?

Beaver: Um, that's a great question, maybe after the end of the weekend when I've had a chance to see a few things. I mean I see the bus moving around quite a bit. I see a lot of good safety in the pedestrian cross walks. I see the 25:00emergency boxes everywhere, so I think with all the way the world is right now and everything needing to be safety and secure it looks like the campus is well lit. It's all what you would expect. If I were to send my daughter here I would be pretty content that she's safe.

Nehrt: Oh yeah. They take it very seriously, especially after April 16th.

Beaver: Yep.

Nehrt: Well, is there anything that I haven't asked you that you would like to talk about? Anything you would like to revisit or expand?

Beaver: Not really. Nothing comes to mind. We went kind of from the beginning to the end, as far as my time here and prior to that and afterward. Not unless you have anything for me.

Nehrt: I think we're good. Thank you so much for taking the time.

Beaver: Okay. Awesome.