Matthew La Porte

Cadet Matthew La Porte’s tenure in the Corps of Cadets, and as a student at Virginia Tech, was tragically cut short by the event that occurred earlier this month, but his legacy of leadership, excellence and an easy smile, will be carried amongst their numbers for decades to come.

La Porte played the tenor drum in one of Tech’s greatest traditions: the Corps of Cadets Marching Band, the Highty Tighties.

“Matt was a kind and generous person highly respected by his bud class and the
administration as well,” said

Major George McNeill, director of the Highty Tighties. “He was  quiet and soft spoken but always had smile when he greeted you. He was a very talented cello player and percussionist in the Highty-Tighty Band. His conga playing in the jazz band will certainly be missed. Whenever those congas are played we’ll all think of Matt and his musical talent.”

His friends from the HT-platoon could only agree.

“He was a really good guy,” Cadet first lieutenant Kyle Ellington, his platoon leader in the Corps, said. “He was one of those guys that sometimes you just had to shake your head and laugh at.”

Ellington described one of La Porte’s most famous acts. La Porte would don his white T-shirt, extra tight Levi’s, classic converse high tops, leather jacket, and then, to top it off, his signature “Aviators,” sunglasses that covered his face.

“We all called him ‘The Fonz,’” Ellington said. “He liked to joke around, and just be a goof.”

Cadet Supply Sergeant Nathaniel Boggs was La Porte’s roommate this semester, who smiled when he thought about La Porte.

“He’d even wear those sunglasses inside, and when it was nighttime,” Boggs said.

But despite his joking personality, Cadet La Porte was held with serious respect among the Corps community.

He consistently challenged himself, and was the epitome of peak physical condition, and was enrolled at Tech on an Air Force scholarship.

“La Porte was in AFSOPT,” Ellington said. “Which is Air Force Special Operations Preparation Training. It’s a program for those who select it in the Air Force ROTC. The cadets have to complete a variety of extreme physical tasks which include a 1000 meter swim, a 1.5 mile run, pull ups, push ups, sit ups and flutter kicks. But that’s not all, the entire course goes on for three weeks, and it’s constant physical exertion.”

La Porte was also a fire team leader in charge of two freshmen cadets in the Corps, and as Ellington pointed out, was the number five AFROTC Cadet in the country last year.

Boggs, noted La Porte lived with just the bare necessities, and was very easy to live with, but one aspect of La Porte’s personal habits, did take some getting used to.

“He loved grunge metal,” Boggs said. “At 6 a.m. he’d roll out of bed, and turn on that music and blast it at the top of the speakers. Dream Theater was one of his favorites.”

His teachers admired his dedication in the classroom. Nikki Giovanni endearingly called him “Matty,” Paul Heilker said no words could describe the amount of respect he had for La Porte, that he was a rare find.

But his buddies had a different name for him.

“We affectionately called him ‘Space Cadet,’” Boggs said. “He’d walk around always looking lost, it was pretty funny.”

Boggs described La Porte’s favorite midnight pastime, a trip for a late meal at Taco Bell.

“He’d come in at 2 a.m. after getting some T-Bell, he loved the stuff,” Boggs said.

He was just an ordinary college student, Ellington recalled, but was revered as an extraordinary guy.

La Porte’s motto is still inscribed on the Highty Tighty web page. It’s a quote from Thomas
Jefferson: “I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”

Mrs. Barbara La Porte, the mother of the fallen, had only this to say: “Hearts of kindness invalidate evil.”