As a rule, I typically do not post on or even read boards like this, but when I heard about some of the things that were being said on here I couldn’t stay away. And after reading some of the most unbelieveably offensive and unsensitive stuff I have ever heard, I felt I had to say something.
I find it difficult to believe that people who are so uninformed about Texas A&M culture and tradition feel that they are qualified to comment about Bonfire. Lieu: I have to ask; what in the world is your problem? Do you just hate Aggies with such a passion that you felt the need to attack us for no apparent reason? If so, why do you hate us? Has some Aggie caused you deep emotional or physical trauma? Or are you just jealous? Where do YOU go to school? I can understand your being jealous if you don’t have the same type of family-like bond to your school that we have to ours.
My issues with lieu aside, I have to say that I am appalled by some peoples’ lack of sensitivity toward a subject that is very painful for many people. Comments about “taking 12 drunken morons out of the gene pool” are completely unneccesary. I suspect that this and comments like it come from bitter people who have never felt the deep sense of pride and belonging that most Aggies experience. I feel sorry for those people, I really do. I wish everyone could know what it feels like to be a part of something that has survived the test of time like many of our long-standing traditions, Bonfire included.
I know that it may be completely naieve of me to think that I could ever get ya’ll to understand what Bonfire is really about, but I have to at least make an attempt. If I can enlighten even one person, then I think I’ve perhaps done something worthwhile to help the school that means so much to me.
My Bonfire experience: I’m Class of '04, so I was a Senior in high school when the '99 Bonfire collapsed. My family ties to A&M go back 4 generations though, so I’ve watched several Bonfires burn as a young child. All my life I looked forward to getting to work on Bonfire (even though my Dad always said that “Stack is no place for a young lady”). My best friend, who is a member of the Corps of Cadets, went to A&M the year before I did. I remember talking to him on the phone around 10pm on November 17th. He was on his way out to the site to work on stack through the night. He was so excited about the whole thing. He told me; “You would never believe how much fun this is. It sucks going to class all day and then working outside all night, I’m not getting any sleep, but these people, they’re like family. I love working with them and this Bonfire’s going to be awesome.” He was practically high on school spirit even though he hadn’t slept in days. I was so happy for him! The next morning I woke up and turned on the tv while I was getting dressed for school. The first image I saw was a collapsed stack surrounded by rescue crews and paramedics in the pre-dawn light. All I could do was pray that no one close to me was hurt and try to call my best friend to see if he was OK. It took all day to actually get to talk to him, he was in shock. He had actually been up on stack when one of his upperclassmen pulled him off around 1:30am for some random reason. A little over an hour later, he was standing about 100 feet away when stack collapsed. He and his friends were among the first to reach stack and start helping people, but he still saw two of his close friends die right in front of him. He has never been the same since that night. It took a long time for him to get over what he had seen. To this day he still has frequent dreams about that night. And so do I, I wasn’t there, I didn’t see anything horrible, but I still have nightmares about losing my best friend. Here’s the kicker though; ask him if he thinks we sould still have Bonfire. He’ll tell you yes in a heartbeat, and he plans to be the first one to volunteer to work on it. He admits that there were problems with construction and coordinating, and those problems all added up to create a tragic accident. But was upholding a tradition like Bonfire worth the risk? Yes, for him and many other people, it was. As for the question about what The 12 would have to say about it, I have always maintained the following position: they were on stack that night because they were REAL Aggies. 100%, maroon blood and all that. To be awake and outside in the cold at 2am you would have to be very dedicated to whatever you were working on, these people were not what we call here at A&M, 2%ers. I honestly believe that what they would want would be for us to either a) build Bonfire according to the old traditons, but in a safer manner. Or b) stop fighting about it even if that means not building it. See, Bonfire is about unity. It’s also about our burning desire to “Beat the hell outta t.u.”, but mostly it’s about the Aggie family coming together and supporting the Spirit of Aggieland. So I think that if we want to honor their memories we have to come together on whatever decision is made and continue to be a unified family like we have always been before.
If any of you really want to understand the Aggie spirit or what Bonfire is truly about, I would encourage you to come to our Bonfire rememberance ceremony. Last year, standing on the Polo Fields at 2:42am in the freezing rain with over 40,000 other people, was the first time I fully understood what this whole thing was about. Most of us out there had never met any of The 12 that we were honoring, but we were out there just the same, joining together to remember our family members. I was born an Aggie, but I never really “got it” until that night. If you really want to know why we are Aggies, why we feel so passionately about this, then come to the ceremony.
We have a saying about the Spirit of Aggieland: “From the outside looking in, you can’t understand it. From the inside looking out, you can’t explain it.” So maybe my attempt to make some of you understand this has been completely futile, but I had to try. I owe it to my school to express this. So go ahead, if you want to, feel free to ridicule my passion and call me a “wrangler-wearing uneducated redneck” or whatever, It doesn’t hurt me, because my family still loves me. I’m confident that the education I’m obtaining here is superior to many of yours, and perhaps I’ll be your boss someday. But that isn’t the point, I’m asking you to please stop making hurtful comments about the 12 people that we lost. Say what you want about our school, our population, our sexual preferences, and our traditions, but please remember that they have friends and family who follow everything that is said about Bonfire and some of your comments so far have been downright cruel. If you have any heart at all, if you’re not purely evil I believe that you will cease saying things that open up deep wounds that are only beginning to heal for some.
Thanks, and Gig 'em.
Jeremy Frampton - Class of 2000
Jamie Hand - Class of 2003
Christopher Heard - Class of 2003
Lucas Kimmel - Class of 2003
Bryan McClain - Class of 2003
Chad Powell - Class of 2002
Jerry Self - Class of 2002
Nathan West - Class of 2002
Miranda Adams - Class of 2002
Micheal Ebanks - Class of 2003
Christpher Breen - Class of 1996
Timothy Kerlee - Class of 2003
<she says, praying the game won’t be near as exciting as it was last year>
We happen to really like them in case you didn’t know. And we love that grass too, but not quite as much as the Boots