Closing Out the Fall

Well...it has been a full and busy semester for all. We have come from an outfit with a new crop of freshmen, untrained and unfamiliar in the ways of the Corps to redass, hard charging fish with shined Corps Brass pinned on their collars. We've watched the Aggie Football team and supported them through the ups and downs of the season, and stand ready to support them again. We've lost some outfit members and gained some.

Ultimately, all these events are what make up our outfit culture and image. The outfit is a living, breathing thing, constantly changing and constantly requiring new and different ways to tend to it. With the training that the freshmen have received throughout the semester and the training they are to receive next semester, they will begin on their path of taking the reigns, preparing to fill the shoes of their upperclassmen as we all begin to move on.

Corps Brass, a time in which freshmen are forced to come together as a class to accomplish several different tasks in order to earn the brass worn by all members of the Corps on their left collar, has come and gone. This is a time when, through the followership that is characteristic of fish year, class leaders begin to surface. Anxiety increases, stress intensifies, and resolve and perseverance strengthen. Your sons have matured far beyond what they once were, and will continue to mature through the rigors of finals and second semester's activities. I encourage all of you to give your sons a pat on the back, for this is no small achievement.

Pictures will be posted in the near future of several of these activities, so keep an eye out. Please encourage your sons to make this one last push for grades during the finals time. The fish grades determine the majority of what the outfit can and cannot due next semester, and we want them to get the full experience out of their once in a lifetime freshman year.