Thank you for your service and the post. I spent my active duty time bouncing back and forth between being CO and XO of the headquarter battery of the OCS battalion at Ft Sill. In that time I saw 6 or 8 Aggies come through the program, some Corps D&C's some non-regs.
I few years back I answered at Muster for a high school friend of mine, a retired USMC officer who went through PLC at A&M as a non-reg. My roomie my senior year started out as a fish in the FTAB with a Marine contract and when his grade went in the toilet they pulled it. He got pissed off and went on to DS several semesters and told the Marines to shove when they wanted him back. He got drafted and ended up in the Ft Hood Band. He was at Kyle Field playing Bass Horn for the Army Band when we played West Point in '71 or '72. As an aside that was the
worst going back to work Monday in my long history of following Aggie football.
Like so many my age, my dad was a WWII vet. Family dynamics did not allow him to go to A&M right out of high school. He went to A&M as a veteran after the war, class of 1950. The author of "Aggie Go To War" wanted to interview my dad, but my dad's health did not allow for that.
Point is all of these are Aggies and veterans.
Over the last month, I've crossed path with two different Clemson grads. Both of them brought up the point that as long as there's a Texas A&M, Clemson will always be number two in the number of veterans in war time.
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The person that is not willing to fight and die, if need be, for his country has no right to life.
James Earl Rudder '32
January 31, 1945
