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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 3, 2003)
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Reggie returns • Page 5 • Gruesome cases • Page 9 >ti t T T' 1 A. m I Ij A Texas A&M Tradition Since 1893 www.thebattaIion.net Monday, November 3, 2003 'rejects lies ide reseani 'Species:! he Attwais : which kt authorin 17 years asi ■tder for |j hicken. ft to earn fe msas Slat, I Altwalfi an onlyk stal praini' /y’s works e remainir; e than 20r tamed k sters on At under tie ■st grade h Key dec t knowleds ; deer stei lissertatitt tied to lk I replicate; i. te up wil o keep tk ing extinct ghways ak sses for ik ■ roads. :ly workitt re Johnsot The are center has ipping dee re suscepk y a vehicle tight qnat- mtly wort' to presene , however ew knowf ig workin; eeing then i dents have ne profci Reveille VI laid to rest By Dan Orth THE BATTALION Reveille VI, the Texas A&M mascot who witnessed the Aggies’ first Big 12 football championship and marched in President George W. Bush’s inauguration parade, was buried yesterday at Kyle Field. Reveille VI served as A&M's first lady from Nov. 13, 1993 to May 12, 2001. Due to failing health, Reveille VI was eutha nized on Oct. 18. An estimated 2,500 students and former stu dents came to pay their respects to her at the memorial service, followed by her burial in the Reveille graves area outside the north end zone of Kyle Field. Jeff Bailey and Mark Boynton, former mascot corporals, said Reveille VI represented A&M. “She represented everything good about A&M: loyalty, devo tion and spirit,” Boynton said. Boynton said the mascot enjoyed attending many sport ing events, visiting elementary schools and going to Aggie Mom’s Club meetings. Boynton said Reveille VI loved to live on campus and run through residence halls. “Like other Aggies. Reveille VI would sleep during class,” Boynton said. Boynton said a professor once asked him to make Reveille bark so he would not have to teach class that day. Reveille retired after seven and a half years of service as her health declined. In 1996, she was diagnosed with idio pathic epilepsy and was later diagnosed with arthritis. The funeral service was led by Corps of Cadet Company E-2, which serves as the mas cot company. Dr. Charles Hall, Reveille’s veterinarian and retirement caretaker, had been sheltering care of the mascot since her retirement in 2001. Hall, who has been the veterinarian for Reveille IV, V and VI, received a plaque from Company E-2 for his service and dedication to Reveille VI. “She was universally loved,” Boynton said. JP BEATO III • THE BATTALION Above: Former Mascot Corporal junior Jordan Caddick, places a wreath of roses on Reveille Vi's casket before the memorial service at Kyle Field Sunday afternoon. Reveille was euthanized on Oct. 18, and had served as Texas A&M's mascot for more than seven years. Above left: Six of Reveille Vi's former mas cot corporals lower her casket in the gravesite area outside the north end zone of Kyle Field following the memorial service on Sunday. , assistai" (epartntflii Resourct Sui W said M ves (0 nd at JOSHUA HOBSON • THE BATTALION Brittney Hartfield of Miami, Fla. signs the shirt of Phi Gamma Delta president Chad Capps after the Kansas football game Saturday. Cancer patients from M.D. Anderson Cancer Center were brought in to watch the game, get autographs (rom the players and take their picture with head coach Dennis Franchione. Aggies share ‘spirit’ with cancer patients By Joaquin Salcedo THE BATTALION Twelve young cancer patients from M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston left Aggieland Saturday with T-shirts signed by Yell Leaders and footballs autographed by the Texas A&M football team and coaches. The patients, ranging from ages 8 to 18, were the guests of honor at a special tailgate party called Share the Spirit sponsored by A&M fraternity Phi Gamma Delta (FIJI) at Spence Park Saturday. Eight-year-old Garret Stringer said he was excited to be at A&M and watch the game. “He couldn’t sleep last night he was so excited,” said Don Stinger, Garret’s father. “He was really looking forward to this.” The children, accompanied by parents, friends and hospital staff, were picked up by 12 fraternity men ready to hand out individ ual gift baskets filled with Aggie parapher nalia. Arriving at Spence Park around 10:30 a.m., the rest of the fraternity members were waiting for the children with food, drinks and a full day of activities. The group was introduced to Reveille VII and to the Yell Leaders, who visited with the children and signed their A&M T-shirts. The Yell Leaders remained to watch the band march into Kyle Field before the game. At the game, the children had seats assigned in the second deck student sec tion. Most had never attended an A&M football game and were anxious to experi ence their first one. Tianna Gale, one of the patients, said she had fun even though it was hot outside. “I knew we were going to win from the start, so it was good,” Gale said. “I was excited.” After the game, the children were taken to the locker room to meet and get auto graphs from players and coaches. They were also invited to head coach Dennis Franchione’s office. After visiting with the team, the tailgate continued until about 6 p.m. when the group was scheduled to depart for Houston. “This was an amazing opportunity,” said adolescent-young adult vocational counselor See Spirit on page 2 I I ULA ta mix 16 U.S. soldiers killed in helicopter crash By Tini Tran THE ASSOCIATED PRESS i FALLUJAH, Iraq — Targeting Americans with new audac- [ity, insurgents hiding in a date palm grove shot down a Chinook helicopter carrying dozens of soldiers heading for home leave Sunday, killing 16 and wounding 20 in the deadliest strike against U.S. forces since they invaded Iraq in March. Witnesses said the attackers used missiles — a sign of the increasing sophistication of Iraq’s elusive anti-U.S. fighters. Three other Americans were killed in separate attacks Sunday, including one 1st Armored Division soldier in Baghdad and two U.S. civilians working for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Fallujah. All three were victims of road side bombs, the military said. Sunday’s death toll was the highest for American troops since March 23 — the first week of the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein — and the attack represented a major escala tion in the campaign to drive the U.S.-led coalition out of the country. The giant helicopter was ferrying the soldiers on their way for leave outside Iraq when two missiles streaked into the sky and slammed into the rear of the aircraft, witnesses told The Associated Press. It crashed in flames in farmers’ fields west of Baghdad. “It’s clearly a tragic day for America,” Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said in Washington. “In a long, hard war, we’re going to have tragic days. But they’re necessary. They’re part of a war that’s difficult and complicated.” Like past attacks on U.S. forces and a string of suicide bombings that killed dozens in Baghdad the past week, U.S. coalition officials blamed either Saddam loyalists or foreign fighters for the strike outside Fallujah, a center of Sunni Muslim resistance to the U.S. occupation. President Bush, who was at his Texas ranch Sunday, refused to personally comment on the attacks. He spent the day out of public view — a “down” day between campaign appearances Saturday and Monday. See Crash on page 2 Missile shoots down U.S. helicopter An attack by insurgents using a shoulder-fired missile downed a U.S. Chinook helicopter south of Fallujah killing 15 soldiers and wounding 21. It was the deadliest single attack on American troops since the start of war. CH-47 Chinook TURKEY * Mosul \ IRAQ SYRIA f •Tikrit Fallujah . 0 Ba 9 hdad g I ^ 15 dead, 21 wounded in helicopter attack SAUDI ARABIA ■ 1 ■ ;y Kuwait City o KUWAIT— SOURCES: Associated Press AP FDA: Byproducts of cloned animals appear safe FORT WORTH (AP) — Cattle are quietly being cloned and sold for high prices as the live stock industry anticipates government approval for letting their offspring into the food chain, industry officials said. Meat or milk derived from healthy cloned farm animals appears safe to eat, the Food and Drug Administration said Friday in its first attempt at assessing questions about the emerging technology. The FDA is still trying to decide if cloned farm animals will require government approval before being sold as food. That decision is expected to take another year. The cattle industry has voluntarily agreed to keep products from cloned animals out of the food supply. But in the meantime, there already are as many as 300 cloned bulls in existence, said Lisa Dryer of Biotechnology Industry Organization, a Washington lobbying group. And an Austin-based biotech firm, ViaGen, said Friday that a cow cloned from a prodigious produc ing animal was auctioned for $170,000 in Iberia, Mo. Some members of Texas’ cattle circles have reservations about whether cloning is commercially practical. The cost of a cloned calf currently is esti mated at $19,000. And some cloned animals devel op health problems. “A lot of those cloned animals have not been as high performance as the animals they’ve been cloned from,” Ernie Davis, professor of livestock marketing at Texas A&M University, told the Fort Worth Star- Telegram. “I think the jury is still out on cloning.” But others said they are ready to consider the tech nology to enhance their breeding stock. “Look at it this way. It’s like duplicating Michael Jordan until you have five Michael Jordans on a team,” said Donald Brown, who runs the cattle-breeding program at his family’s Throckmorton ranch. “Cloning takes breeding to a whole new level.” Memorial project work advances By Jacquelyn Spruce THE BATTALION Some of the largest pieces of stone in America will arrive this month at Texas A&M to be used as a part of the construction of the 1999 Aggie Bonfire Memorial, said memorial designer Bob Shemwell of Overland Partners, Inc. The stones, shipped from China, weigh more than 35,000 pounds each, and Shemwell said they’re so big a saw had to be imported from Italy to cut them. “There wasn’t a saw big enough in the entire See Memorial on page 2 BONFIRE MEMORIAL CONSTRUCTION | C6nstrucfion , oftRe ,l Sonf!reTfemonaf7sTfn9enway^nS*i? l sclYe3u!ey to be complete in one year. • The 140-foot perimeter ring will be composed of 27 granite blocks • A visitor center will provide shade and restroom facilities • Construction is not expected to hinder traffic • Parking lot 51 will be extended for memorial visitors' parking CRACIE ARENAS • THE BATTALIOt SOURCE : OVERLAND PARTNERS, INC. OF SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY