Captain Walter Beam Reflects on His Remarkable Career in the Navy and His Thoughtful Decision to Become a Charitable Gift Annuity Donor to NMCRS
By: Samantha Mendiguren
As an extremely sharp, humorous, and charismatic individual, one would be astounded that Captain Walter Beam, USN (Ret.) celebrated his 100th birthday in August 2020. With 33 years dedicated to the U.S. Navy, Captain Beam has an honorable and admirable story leading up to his generous donations to Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society.
We thank Captain Beam for his tremendous dedication to the Navy, but he himself is humbly grateful for the opportunities which the Navy provided him.
A native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Captain Beam completed 3 years of college pursuing a Biology degree at Penn State before returning to his work in Philadelphia at a factory where he was asked to head a new department. However, once he decided to join the Navy, he was presented with the option of returning to school and finishing his degree. He took advantage of this opportunity and finished his degree in Biology at Penn State. He then obtained his master’s degree in Biology at UC Berkeley and also completed coursework for a PhD. Not only was Captain Beam the first in his family to go to college, he was the first to graduate from the 8th grade. This experience allowed him to enhance his professional career and provide exceptional influences on medical research around the world.
Captain Beam “went from the very bottom to the very top”, he described, joining as a Navy recruit in 1942, and reaching Chief Petty Officer after a few years. He had the utmost commitment to his duties within the Navy, stating that he “didn’t miss even a single day of active duty.”
Captain Beam excelled in the sciences and provided his expertise in various locations around the world. In the early 1950s, he was deployed aboard the USS Whidbey to Guam to fulfill the Ensign deployment requirements. In the mid 1950s he was the executive officer of the microbiology department at the U.S Navy research unit in Taipei, Taiwan. Upon being transferred back to the naval biological laboratory in Oakland, California in 1958 he was assigned to be technical director of a classified operation afloat known as Project Shad aboard the USS Granville S. Hall (YAG-40) which took him to a 2 year assignment at Pearl Harbor. In 1963 Captain Beam was then transferred to the U.S. Navy Medical Research Center in Bethesda, Maryland where he designed and reported on alternative testing methods for curing syphilis. Among numerous publications was a paper co-authored with Dr. James Humes, one of the doctors who performed President John F. Kennedy’s autopsy. During this time he was also assigned temporary duty to establish the presence of a medical research subunit in Ethiopia, a subunit of the Cairo NAMRU3 unit. In 1969 Captain Beam was transferred to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina to lead the infectious disease research unit there. He was promoted to Captain in 1970 and retired in 1973.
Aside from Captain Beam’s personal ambition and drive, he had an innate desire to serve in the military due to his father’s time as a Marine. Captain Beam recalled his father as a character with great strength: “My father was in the Marine Corps in World War I, and he liked to fight, he was a fighter. He had three battles. The Battle of Belleau Wood was the first – where they named the Marines ‘The Devil Dogs’ – and he was awarded a Purple Heart. The next one was the Battle of Soissons, he was awarded a Purple Heart there, and the next one was Chateau-Thierry, and he was awarded a Purple Heart there. I had to get in the service too.”
After having served in the Navy himself, Captain Beam wanted to find a way to continue to help those in the military by donating, which led him to NMCRS. Combining both branches of the military with which he has close relations, he knew NMCRS was the one he wished to support. “It was the right thing to remember both my dad and me to donate to the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society,” Captain Beam said.
With a Charitable Gift Annuity, Captain Beam made a generous gift to the Society, got a charitable tax deduction, and receives a steady, reliable income stream for life.
“I always appreciated the good works the Society did for my fellow service members and wanted to contribute in thanks for the Navy providing me advanced education, and opportunities to advance in my career,” Captain Beam said.