Douglas Beaver: A Hokie Captain

Captain Douglas J. Beaver was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. During his childhood, his father’s naval career took them all over the world to places like: Japan, Washington, DC; Newport, Rhode Island; San Diego, California; the Philippines; and Germany. Of all of these locations, Captain Beaver most fondly remembers Germany.

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.Captain Douglas Beaver

Well-traveled and with a clear objective in mind, Captain Beaver came to Virginia Tech in 1987 and graduated in 1991 with a B.A. in Political Science and a minor in History. At Virginia Tech, he continued to live a life familiar to him as a member of the Corps of Cadets and especially enjoyed his history and law courses here.

“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.”Captain Douglas Beaver

Although, he was familiar with a military lifestyle, Captain Beaver’s involvement in the Corps was very important to his experience as a Hokie.

While discipline is part of the lifestyle for any Cadet at Virginia Tech, Captain Beaver shares that it wasn’t all work and no fun. He and his friends and family went hiking, tubing on the New River, and tailgated for football games.

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 fun.Captain Douglas Beaver

Captain Beaver’s career in the Navy has taken him far away from Virginia Tech, but he and his college friends try to make it back to check on our progress and to attend Corps of Cadets events. Summarizing Virginia Tech is an easy task for Captain Beaver who explains Virginia Tech in this way: