Honoring the Fallen

From afar, they appear to be part of the football gameday pageantry on the patriotic Texas A&M campus--Kyle Field, fitted with a fluttering crown of American flags.

But the coronet of Star-Spangled Banners has a meaning – another gem in the treasure trove of Aggie traditions.

And this year, the tradition gets updated as 16 additional American flags will be hoisted on the Northeast and Northwest Activation Towers, bringing the total to 71.

Each flag represents one of the Aggie veterans that perished during World War I, along with an additional one representing all those still unknown.

The Corps of Cadets is tasked with running the flags up the poles at Kyle Field the evening prior to an Aggie football game. They remain unfurled until the morning after the game in which they are retrieved by the Corps. Texas A&M Athletics purchases the flags and the Corps of Cadets decides when their condition requires retirement.

“Kyle Field is lit up the night before a game through morning following the game in order to properly present the flags as a tribute,” Associate Athletics Director for Game Management Steve Miller said. 

The 15 new names were unearthed through the extensive and comprehensive research efforts of the Brazos County World War I Centennial Committee. Among the leaders in the research efforts were chairman John Blair ’83, archivist for the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library, and Pamela Marshall '80.

According to Blair, the research began accidentally as the BCWWICC was working on another project. Former Texas A&M Archivist Greg Bailey discovered that “William Butts” was listed in a yearbook as a Gold Star, but was not memorialized anywhere on campus. The decision was made at that point to conduct thorough research to ensure that all who perished were properly memorialized.

“It was extremely tedious and time consuming,” Blair said. “The research had to be 100 percent accurate since we were asking for them to be memorialized on campus. No mistakes – based on the precedence of the original 55 Gold Stars. Primarily we had to compare several documents – the A&M College Student Registers with the World War I statement of service cards; World War I draft registrations cards and the Veterans Administration master index files. These each had to match 100 percent - hometowns, full names, including middle names, which was extremely important.”

The three main members conducting the service, Blair, Bailey and William Page ‘80, sifted through thousands of names searching for confirmation. The committee’s early work found five new ones, including John W. Butts, Ira W. South, Herbert R. Florence, Joseph Z. Sawyer and George W. Splawn in 2017.

When the BCWWICC disbanded in 2019, there were total of nine names on the list ready to be added to the various memorial areas around campus. The efforts to move forward was painfully slow, but it turned out out to be a blessing in disguise.

“During the delay in 2021 we were able to identify an additional six young men,” Blair said. “(Vice President for Student Affairs/Brigadier General Joe) Ramirez provided funding for the additional new trees and plaques (around the Simpson Drill Field), but we had to obtain additional funds to correct errors on the existing memorial plaques. We didn’t want this opportunity to pass.”

The previously unrecognized Aggie veterans also include Charles L. Beaty, Robert R. Brown, John W. Fuchs, Edmund J. Griffin, John B. Laden, Stephen A. Norwood, Joseph L. Smith, Alvin M. Stovall, James L. Vance and Charles M. Whitfield.

A labor of love, Marshall, Blair and his wife--Jackie Blair ’83--have visited the graves of every one of the 70 Gold Stars to pay their respects, including a trip last year to France.

In the early years after the Great War, the numbers cited for the Aggie casualties ranged from The Gold Book, an old Texas A&M alumni quarterly in 1919, profiling the 49 Aggies who died to Henry Detloff listing 54 in Texas Aggies Go to War. But the number 55 had been generally agreed upon since the 1970s, including a 1978 story in The Eagle mentioning 55 trees and 55 flags flying over Kyle Field.

The 70 Aggies are also each honored with a tree surrounding the Simpson Drill Field adjacent to the Memorial Student Center, Texas A&M’s student union. The MSC is a memorial to honor all Aggies who lost their lives during battle. Dedicated on Muster Day in April 1951, it houses the Hall of Honor memorializing eight brave Aggies who have received the Congressional Medal of honor for their distinguished acts of valor.

As the United States was entering the Great War, Texas A&M was the largest military college in the country, including the U.S. Military Academy and U.S. Naval Academy. Estimates list 2,000 students from the then-Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas fighting for the Allied Powers.

“Texas A&M University was established in 1876 as a military institution,” vice president for student affairs Brigadier General Joe Ramirez, Jr. stated in August during the Simpson Drill Field update. “Since then, we have continued to honor this proud military tradition of Texas Aggies serving our nation’s military in both peace and war. While membership in our Corps of Cadets is now voluntary, we still form the largest uniformed student body outside the U.S. military academies, and we still commission more officers into the military each year than any other school outside the military academies.”