Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 17, 2003)
m THE BAmJ lots deal SciTech: Computers a la carte • Page 7A Acgielife: Colorblind romance • Page 3A T* ATT AT TfYM DAI lALlwiN ^ht attendants’ ed Monday foi e because of problt; )ting but Amei ; request. A i said there wasadt; ; contract langi i employees. 3n elections were phone and ovei an accelerated proej neet American’s ra lline. ees began v er negotiators for id unions reached merits March 31 md ground wort! I Volume 109 • Issue 135 • 18 pages Texas A&M University www.thebatt.com Thursday, April 17, 2003 eflections display added to Muster tradition By Dallas Shipp THE BATTALION Muster 2003 begins a new traditiion in honoring deceased Aggies this year ith a Reflections display accompany- ngeach name on the Muster roll call. During Monday night’s campus cer- mony in Reed Arena, each name on he roll call will have an item or picture to change^their v: )n ^piay j n Memorial Student enter Flagroom representing their life lay, but flight at not, raising cent: ^ an Aggie. flight attendants eject the deal be:: iave an jt eiri donated by their family weetened the oi /ith possible bonus m sought $660 mil concessions from its, $620 million f and workers andS m 24,000 flight ac agreements inch 2,500 pilots, ah t attendants and u: id workers, arned that if Ameri bankruptcy, it ra million in issions. said he feared event into bankrupts •ound 100 planes lother 500 to m’s parent, Fc d AMR. has lost lion in the past:! ontinues to lose ah' a day. Those being honored who did not «11 have a candle and name card on a able for visitors to view. In past campus ceremonies. Aggies ,vho died the previous year in the Brazos Valley were remembered by friends and relatives who lit a candle and answered “here” during the roll call of the honored. Senior marketing major and Muster committee member Shannon Vogt said officers read the idea for the Reflections display in an application from someone applying to join the committee, which plans the annual Muster ceremony. “One of the questions in the applica tion was, 'What would you do to make Muster 2003 a memorable experi ence?’” Vogt said. “Someone came up with that idea and we thought it was a good idea.” But because this marks the first year for the new addition to Muster, some friends and family members were unaware of the Reflections display. Vogt said she has received touching feedback from family members and students. “We’ve gotten several notes in with the pictures saying that it was really tough to go through all the pictures and stuff again,” she said. “Most of the fam ilies think it’s a really good idea.” One student being honored this year is former Aggie football player Brandon Fails, who died last November due to complications from a blood clot in his leg. His parents, Charles and Valerie Fails, allowed Vogt to use pic tures of their son for the display. The Athletic Department is also allowing Fails’ A&M football helmet to be dis played. /VI ster At a Ance: - Camaraderie Barbecue in Academic Plaza, I i a.m. - 3 p.m. ritMiAl - Roll call for the absent in Reed Arena at / p.m. Monday April 21, 2003 - Absences from classes after S p.m. will be University excused Charles Fails said he thought it was a good idea to add the Reflections dis play and said the support from the University community has helped to ease the pain of losing a son. “It’s tough when you see his dorm, the school, the athletes,” Fails said. “(But) it is comforting because it shows SOURCE: MUSTER COMMITTEE • Travis Swenson that he’s not forgotten there in the hearts and minds of the students. It helps to ease the pain.” The Reflections display will be open to the public from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Monday, before items are returned to the families at Reed Arena later that night. Looks like spring ar in Mystic er Skin Renewer Pink full size Spray bag Randal Ford • THE BATTALION Texas A&M employee Eddie Velasco waters a section of yellow pansies planted near the Academic Plaza on Wednesday afternoon. The yellow pansies have been recently plant ed all over campus and should continue to bloom until the end of June. Memorial planners say site to be ‘uplifting’ By Bernhard Hall THE BATTALION With the Bonfire Memorial set to be dedicated on Nov. 18, 2004, project designers held an open forum Wednesday to dis cuss their progress and the details of the memorial. The completed memorial will be the culmination of months of work by a team that says it has strived to memorial ize the 12 Aggies who lost their lives and the 27 who were injured, and to honor the tradi tion of Bonfire and the spirit and unity it represented. “We want the memorial to be not just a downer, but also uplifting,” said Bob Shemwell, speaker for the group from Overland Partners, Inc. the firm designing the memorial. The memorial will consist of three components: the Traditions Plaza, the History Walk and the Spirit Ring, Shemwell said. The Traditions Plaza will be a visitor center as well as a museum containing memora bilia and artifacts from past Bonfires, he said. The plaza will also contain poems and other material, including “The Last Corps Trip,” which was traditionally read at each Bonfire. The History Walk is a path from the Traditions Plaza to See Memorial on page 5A Media Board retains students By Rolando Garcia THE BATTALION The Student Media Board discussed but did not vote on a proposal to bar student leaders from sitting on the panel that selects The Battalion editor in chief each semester, with most board members expressing opposition to the measure. Brady Creel, a former Battalion editor in chief, proposed amending the bylaws of the Board to prohibit officers of student organiza tions such as the Student Government Association, Memorial Student Center and the Corps of Cadets from serving on the body. The Board, which oversees The Battalion, consists of three student members nominated by the stu dent body president. Faculty and staff comprise the other five voting members, and any decision to hire or fire an editor must be approved by the Provost. In the past, the student body president has nominated himself, members of the SGA exec utive council, the MSC council president or other high-profile student leaders. In a state ment submitted to the Board, Creel said this sit uation compromises the independence of The Battalion by subjecting editors to pressure from the student leaders they cover. But most Board members said the participa tion of student leaders on the Board has not led to conflicts of interest. “I see the potential problem, but I’ve yet to see any evidence this problem has occurred,” said Leroy Dorsey, chair of the Board and inter im head of the journalism department. Prakash Krishnan Nair, a student member of the Boad and an officer in the Graduate Student Council, said it is unlikely the Board could exer cise undue influence on The Battalion’s editori al decisions since the group only meets once a semester and does nothing more than hire the editor in chief. Barbara Gastel, a Board member and jour nalism professor, said the proposal raised legit imate concerns about student leaders who are covered by The Battalion selecting the newspa per’s editor in chief. “I can remember some situations when some people (on the Board) had personal agendas,” she said. Creel was not present at the meeting but said later that he was disappointed by the Board’s decision. The continued presence of student leaders on the Board could have a chilling affect on Battalion staff, who may fear retribution from student members of the Board for a con troversial or critical story, Creel said. In other business, the Board nominated Sommer Bunce to be editor in chief of The Battalion for Fall 2003. On April 4, the Board nominated True Brown as editor in chief for the summer semester and Heath Taylor Crawford as editor of the Aggieland yearbook. The nomina tions must be approved by the Provost. aj. Rodriguez educates students on military life U.S. forces capture airfield near Baghdad By Esther Robards-Forbes THE BATTALION Texas A&M Naval ROTC Program irector and 20-year Marine Corps veteran aj. Justin C. Rodriguez discussed com- on misconceptions and the reality of mil- jitary life Wednesday night at the Stark allery as a part of the Memorial Student Center Current Issues Awareness series. While many myths exist about the mili- life as a soldier is nothing like the ovies, Rodriguez said. A common misconception of enlisted soldiers is that these personnel are “dumb igh school drop outs,” he said. In reality, U.S. military requires a high school diploma as a condition of enlistment. Rodriguez described the military’s teamwork in all aspects of life, from train ing to home life, with families coordinating child care schedules. He also spoke about the kinder, gentler side of the military, describing a caring environment in which officers look out for enlisted personnel and enlisted personnel look out for one another. Rodriguez also discussed the enormous responsibility of commanding soldiers in dangerous situations. “We’re in the people business,” he said. “I have ordered America’s finest young men to do things that I knew might get them killed, but I would not have done that if 1 did not have full confidence that they were the best trained people in the world. I also made sure that before we left on that mission that their families were fully taken care of.” Rodriguez declined to speak about the current conflict in Iraq and said that because he was not there, he could not address the topic. When asked for his opinion on the patri otism of campus protesters, Rodriguez called their demonstrations “the sound of freedom,” and said that while he did not agree with their stance, he believed they were still patriotic and had a right to exer cise their freedoms. Rodriguez has a degree in political sci ence from A&M and teaches naval science at the University. He lives with his wife and seven children in Bryan. By John Sullivan, Peter Smolowitz and Carol Rosenberg KRT CAMPUS BAGHDAD, Iraq - The war is not quite over after all. U.S. Forces from the 4th Infantry Division captured the Taji Army Airfield northwest of Baghdad on Wednesday after sporadic fighting and bombing from U.S. warplanes. Soldiers found large caches of rocket-propelled grenades, missiles and artillery rounds at the military facility about 15 miles northwest of the Iraqi capital. A U.S. Kiowa helicopter fired mis siles into a bunker laden with muni tions, triggering thundering explo sions and billowing mushroom clouds for 10 hours. Shock waves from the explosions could be felt for miles as detonated rockets and blazing debris landed hundreds of yards away. U.S. warplanes also spotted seven surface-to-air missile sites around the airstrip, destroying five with 500- pound bombs. Hundreds of Iraqi civil ians hoping to catch a glimpse of the spectacle gathered too close to the remaining two sites, which prevented U.S. forces from destroying them. Soldiers from the 10th Cavalry, which took the brunt of the fighting, also detained about 110 men dressed in civilian clothing found walking along the road or driving trucks near a military compound. Ten were held for further questioning. No U.S. troops were injured. Elsewhere, American troops killed seven Iraqi civilians in the northern See Capture on page 2A Erik Campos • KRT CAMPUS Members of the 404th Aviation Support Battalion join in fueling their vehicles with other units from the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division near Camp Udairi in northern Kuwait on last Friday.