It is with great excitement and anticipation that I await the beginning of Texas A&M University’s play as a member of the Southeastern Conference. I come from Texas, have many friends and family members who are current and former students of TAMU and I am considering it for graduate school myself.

I was greatly chagrined to read the article regarding TAMU’s traditions and discover that it abjectly failed to even mention one of the greatest and most representative traditions at the University – the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets. Texas A&M began life as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, an all-male military school formed during the Reconstruction era through the Morrill Act.

Though the requirement of military participation was dropped in the 1960s, the Corps of Cadets still maintains a very active role within the University. To give a few examples, the nationally famous Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band is a unit of the Corps of Cadets, around 2,000 of the school’s 50,000 students are Corps members, and the entire Corps attend all football games played in the home stadium and many played away.

The Corps has its own social structure and leadership system, and in many ways fills the role held by greek organizations at the average SEC school. There is an utter bevy of traditions within the Corps that I could list, from Reveille to the senior boots, but, just as with Alabama tradition, it would require more column inches than this publication typically devotes to an entire paper, much less one letter.

Instead, I will close with this thought: The phrase “Gig ’em,” the Aggie equivalent of a Roll Tide, is generally thought to be a nonsense phrase, but in fact has groundings in the school’s military tradition.

It refers to the action of running one’s opponent through with a bayonet. Again, a warm welcome to the Fightin’ Texas Aggies, and best of luck against every team that is not Alabama!

Danelle M. Pecht is a sophomore majoring in chemistry and chemical engineering.