Page 2/Jhe Battalion/Tuesday, September 10,1985
OPINION
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Message of special
Aggie unraveled
EDITOR:
I am writing to you because I was ,
having trouble understanding why
things turned out as they did. Al
though I really tried to figure it out
on my own, it has taken until now, al
most two months later, to see what a
very special Aggie was showing me. I
thought it needed to be shared with
someone.
Joseph Walker Swinney was a good
friend of mine as he was to others
here. It was Joe and another officer
(and Aggie grad) from my National
Guard unit that insisted on the night
we had off from Annual Training
last summer we come to College Sta
tion where I got my first tour of the
campus at 2:30 a.m.
It was Joe that proudly and with
out mistake or hesitation of name in
troduced me to practically everyone
we ran into on campus the next day.
And it was Joe who quietly walked me
onto Kyle Field’s 50-yard line and
told me I was standing in the center
of the universe.
Joe was killed in a two-jeep acci
dent during Annual Training at Ft.
Hood this summer, as all of his
friends know. There were many peo
ple at his funeral in Dallas, memorial
services by fellow members of the
Corps at Ft. Riley, Kansas and Quan-
tico, Virginia. Two memorial services
were held at Ft. Hood, one by his unit
and one by mine, as he was a member
of our unit until he transferred. And
there were many who could not at
tend that wished to.
I had to question “Why?” and were
it not for the strength of his family I
would not understand what I am sup
posed. to get from this. All of us paid
w'hat respect we could because we un
derstood his feelings for ourselves
and everything around him. We can
tell you stories that are only bits and
pieces of his dedication to it all.
He did not simply come here to
earn a degree, to get a job and then to
grow old in front of the weekend re
runs on television. The only way to
explain what he did was that he came
here and loved this school as his fa
ther before him. (“Love” is the closest
I can come to explain what feelings
he held here because emotions can’t
bring the words. By themselves
they’re simply not enough.) Some
where through the tears, his mother
and I figured that he couldn’t have
cared more, couldn’t have done or
felt more for this school and those
who touched his life than he did.
To tell you the truth it hurts to re
alize I won’t see him this Fall because
it’s just so hard to imagine him not
being here. And to those who don’t
know yet or can’t feel what this place
is all about, I say to you a body knows
limits, but a heart, a mind, and a
spirit do not know boundaries or re
straints.
That’s what I think he would want
me to see. I told someone the other
day I didn’t know what all of the hoo-
plah about A&M was, and I hope if
she is reading this she knows I was
wrong.
Being a transfer student last spring
semester, I have yet to attend an Ag
gie football game or Midnight Yell
Practice. But I have seen what this
place means with unbridled convic
tion. A heart I still hear beating, a
mind I know still thinks of tomor
rows, and the spirit I hear rustling
the very tree branches I walk under
reminds me.
Mike Pryor
EDITOR’S NOTE: This letter origi
nally appeared in The Battalion in
August. We reprint it at the request
of Traci Partridge, who wanted Ag
gies to remember Joe at Silver Taps
tonight.
‘Un-run’ fun undone
EDITOR:
On the night of Wednesday, Sep
tember 4, the men of Crocker Hall
participated in one of their tradi
tional publicity runs through the girls
dorms. These “Un-runs” have long
been known for their originality and
popularity with the ladies.
On Wednesday night, however,
Crocker Hall was not the only dorm
to do an “Un-run.” After Crocker left
the dorms, a few guys from Moore
Hall al so ran through the girls’
dorms. The object of Moore Hall’s
run was not publicity or entertain
ment but rather obscenity.
These guys ran through the girls’
dorms doing vulgar chants and yells
and even resorted to “mooning” the
girls!
On behalf of Crocker Hall I would
like to apologize to all the ladies on
campus for the rude and tasteless be
havior of our neighbors in Moore
Hall, and I hope that nothing like this
ever happens again. Thank you.
Rob Farrell
President, Crocker Hall
Liberal arts ‘pud’ major for A&M
Several weeks
ago, while I was
in Indiana visit
ing friends and
checking out
the master’s
program in po
litical science at
Indiana Univer
sity, my fiance
asked: “What’s
the pud major
at Texas A&M?”
“Pudmajor?” I said.
“Yeah,” she responded. “You
know, the major that’s the easiest to
get a degree in.”
“I never really thought about it, but
a lot of the people at A&M consider
liberal arts majors second-class citi
zens," I replied. “I don’t think that’s
true at all, but most liberal arts stu-
dentsjust don’t get any respect.”
I paused for a moment and then
continued: “I’ve had encounters with
engineering students who were deter
mined to make me feel like a walking
compendium of semi-useless infor
mation. I guess the problem results
from the fact that A&M stands for
Agricultural and Mechanical.
“As you know our ag program is
very big and the engineering college
is one of the largest in the nation . . .
also the College of Business has
grown in the last 10 years. But unfor
tunately, most of these programs put
little emphasis on courses outside a
student’s major. A&M doesn’t have a
core curriculum so a lot of students
just don’t get much exposure to
courses in liberal arts.”
Then I explained to Elaine some of
the things that make A&M different
from other universities — things that
have slowed change. I told her about
the history of the Corps (as best I
could), traditions and the special “es
prit de corps” that, supposedly, is
shared by all students at A&M, not just
the Corps of Cadets. And I told her
about prejudices — beginning with
early prejudices against women and
blacks, to recent controversies over
women in the band and recognition of
Cay Student Services.
Liberal arts suffers in other ways, I
added. Because of the emphasis placed
on science and engineering at A&M,
many students believe that where both
are offered, the Bachelor of Science de
gree is better than a Bachelor of Arts.
The very word art brings to mind con
notations of feminity at a University
where masculinity is defended to the
death.
“You can get a B.S. in any of the lib
eral arts programs?” Elaine asked, as
tounded.
“In some of them ”.
“But why would anybody want a B.S.
in political science or journalism?”
“Well, for one thing a B.S. degree has
no foreign language requirement and a
lot of people would rather avoid taking
a language,” I said . “Others believe that
the B.S. offers better exposure to com
puter science and business.”
“But don’t people there know that
graduate schools want students to have
foreign languages?” asked Elaine.
“I don’t think so. None of my advisers
explained advantages of either degree
to me. Fortunately I went the B.A. route
and I’m glad I did.
“But another friend isn’t so lucky. I
asked him if he knew that most schools
require a foreign language. He said he
wasn’t worried (he’s following a B.S. de
gree plan), he wanted to stay at A&M.
He was surprised when I told him A&M
has a foreign language requirement for
the Master of Arts degree in political sci
ence.”
“It seems to me that places an extra
burden on grad students,” Elaine said.
“They could have easily taken a lan
guage as an undergraduate. Just imag
ine what it would be like for someone
who decides they want to go to a school
like the University of California at Ber
keley where some grad programs re
quire two languages. I sure wouldn't
want to try it,” she said.
“Neither would I,” I said.
Elaine couldn’t understand why any
one would attend a school that doesn't
adequately prepare its students for the
future.
“I’m glad I didn’t go there (A&M),"
she said.
“But many students are proud of
A&M,” 1 replied.
Not only do students come to A&M
for engineering, agriculture and busi
ness, they come to join the Corps or be
cause it has become the family tradition,
I explained.
Unfortunately, student “legacies’are
likely to suffer the most. They come be
cause of the Corps or to follow in their
father’s footsteps, without a particular
goal in mind other than getting their se
nior boots or graduating. Those in for
the biggest shock are the followers—the
ones who go into engineering because
everyone else is doing it. And when they
realize that they either don’t like it or
can’t do it, they look for another major
and many times it’s liberal arts.
“And that’s why,” I told Elaine,
“many students look down at us — be
cause they think liberal arts is easy.”
“So I guess students down there think
Ronald Reagan, JFK and Woodrow Wil
son are a bunch of puds,” she said.
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“Reagan majored in sociology and
JFK studied political science as an un
dergraduate," Elaine answered. “And
Woodrow Wilson was editor of his col
lege newspaper.”
John Hallett is a senior political sci
ence major, a columnist and News Edi
tor for The Battalion.
John Hallett
With 'big stick' comes bigger responsibility
Apartheid. The
name is synonymous Michael
with the South Afri- Crawford
can policy of racial (( n/iniiiusi.
segregation and dis- —————
crimination which wrinkles the nose like
a foul-smelling odor. World attention,
focused earlier this year on flight 847
and Ethiopia, has turned to the turmoil
in South Africa. It fills our television
screens nightly with images of riots,
harsh police actions and that govern
ment’s hard line. And with each passing
day it becomes clearer that the United
States is in a no-win situation.
The white South African govern
ment, unwilling to relinquish control to
the black majority, is becoming increas
ingly squeezed by internal dissension
and other countries’ outrage. Govern
ment-supported police brutality and in
stitutionalized racial discrimination far
exceeds what occurred in the American
South, and it is dwarfed only by the
atrocities of dictators like Hitler.
The vortex of the storm grows with
each new r riot, and South Africa appears
to be running out of its most precious
commodity — time.
As other Western governments
moved closer to establishing economic
sanctions against South Africa, the Rea
gan administration stuck to its guns on a
policy of “constructive engagement” —a
policy which had produced no tangible
results. The United States was left to
walk softly and hide its big stick.
Why should we care about wh;u hap
pens in a country located on thu tip of
another continent thousands ot miles
away?
Because 500 American companies
have branches or holdings in a country
which has just frozen foreign invest
ments, preventing the flight of capital.
Because the United States is depen
dent on South African minerals, crucial
to producing the strong, light-weight
materials used in our defense industry.
Because at least 650 people, mostly
blacks, have died in riots there during
the past 18 months.
And mostly because the entire con
cept of apartheid
should be repug
nant to a nation
founded on “life,
liberty and the
pursuit of happi
ness.”
What can and
should be done
by the U.S. gov-
ernment to
peacefully bring
this practice to an
end? As South
Africa’s largest
trading partner,
America’s stick is
large, our respon
sibility that much
greater.
Economic jit
ters have already
damaged South
Africa's economy.
The rand has
plunged to half of
its 1984 value,
gold reserves are down, and the finance
minister is bouncing around the globe
trying to refinance hiscpuntry’s debts.
The United States placed sanctions
on South Africa Monday. They will fur
ther damage that country’s weakened
economy. Economic pressure will result
in political pressure on a government
which has already sworn not to abandon
its hard-line course. And white South
Africans’ anger will punish the mosf vul
nerable, least guilty group— the blacks.
The United States could have contin
ued trading with South Africa, making
certain that American companies would
have been nationalized once the blacks
came to power. Blacks’ resentment and
anger at American inaction would have
equalled that of the Iranians’ after the
fall of the Shah. And the world’s most
powerful nation would have been seen
as supporting brutality and discrimina
tion.
Whatever further action* or inaction.
United Feature Syndicate
the furor on Capital Hill produces,
South Africa will continue to be ripped
apart. History suggests that a govern
ment not supported by its people cannot
survive long. When that lyappens, apart
heid will be gone and its passing will
have done far more than wrinkle our
noses.
Michael Crawford is a senior journa
lism major.
The Battalion
USPS 045 360
Member of
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Conference
The Battalion Editorial Board
Rhonda Snider, Editor
Michelle Powe, Managing Editor
Loren Stef fy, Opinion Page Editor
Karen Bloch, City Editor
John Hallett, Kay Mallett, News Editors
Travis Tingle, Sports Editor
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