22 former students died in military service
COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS (AP) -- An emotional Robert Gates, U.S. secretary of defense and a former Texas A&M University president, led the annual roll call of fallen Aggies by saying the names of 22 former students who died in military service.
He began the tradition with its four most sacred words: Softly call the Muster.
Gates left the school in 2006 when former President George W. Bush asked him to head the defense department. The audience was asked Tuesday night to stand and answer "here" in place of the soldiers. Some of the fallen were recent graduates whose diplomas he had signed. "It's good to be back home," said Gates, in an online story Tuesday by the Houston Chronicle. "My head and my work are in one place, but my heart is in another - in Aggieland." Gates, who did not attend A&M, did not talk about current news or military developments. He praised Texas A&M.
"Muster is the greatest of Aggie traditions," said Gates. "Muster is the essence of Aggie culture and spirit. The ceremony has no parallel in any other institution in America - not in the armed forced, not in the CIA, not in business, and certainly not in any other college or university." Gates said if Bush had not called, his public service career would have ended at the school.
The Aggie Muster tradition is carried out on April 21. More than 300 locations, including Iraq and Afghanistan, participated this year.
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