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(Above) Veterans participating in the Texas Challenge leave from Houston Monday morning. (Below) The group arrives at its first overnight pit stop, College Station, Monday afternoon.
(Left to right) Former New Hampshire Gov. Kevin Chou — THE BATTALION John Sununu, Mary Kate Cary and Chase Untermeyer share their experiences of working with George H.W. Bush.
H.W. Bush staffers give inside look By James Palacios
Wesley Holmes — THE BATTALION
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A trio of staff members from the George H.W. Bush Administration shared their experiences from the White House Monday to an audience that included former President H.W. Bush and former First Lady Barbara Bush. The panel consisted of a former chief of staff, an ambassador to Qatar and a speech writer. John H. Sununu, who served as governor of New Hampshire from 1983 to 1989 and later went on to become White House chief of staff from 1989 to 1991, discussed his work, “The Quiet Man: The Indispensable Presidency of George H.W. Bush.” “After about a quarter of century, I looked back at the four years George Bush 41 had served in the White House and felt that not many people appreciated the breadth and depth of what had actually been accomplished at that time,” Sununu said. “So I decided to put between the two covers of a book my recollections of what he had achieved and to try and collect in one place a record that I hoped would at least stand as a reference point for all those academics and others who want to come back and study the presidency.” At the age of 25, Mary Kate Cary was writing speeches for President Bush. She now is the executive producer of “41ON41,” an award-winning documentary that features 41 individuals
150 war veterans bike nearly 500 miles for the ‘Texas Challenge’ By Katy Stapp
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ne hundred and fifty veterans biked into town Monday. Their stop in College Station marked one of many pit stops on the route of the Texas Challenge, a 490-mile, six-day rehabilitative ride from Houston to Fort Worth. The challenge is part of the UnitedHealthcare Ride 2 Recovery program,
which started in 2008 to provide injured veterans from all backgrounds with resources to cope with the experiences they may face. The Texas Challenge aims to give injured or retired veterans and first responders an opportunity for rehabilitation and recovery — both physical and mental — and bonding with others in similar circumstances. The week-long ride consists of between 50 to 100 miles each day, with rest stops and town visits along the way. The riders arrived in College Station for an overnight stay Mon-
day afternoon and will leave Tuesday at 7:45 a.m. after visiting with community members at the George Bush Presidential Library. “When they ride with other veterans that have maybe had similar problems or circumstances, it’s a bonding experience,” said Sheri Goldberg, UnitedHealthcare Ride 2 Recovery spokesperson. “They bond and have this camaraderie — they meet people they can talk to … We have veterans who have physical injuries; we have multiple amputees on some of our rides. We have folks TEXAS CHALLENGE ON PG. 2
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Aggies compile a collection of vet war stories
Brigham Hill leads the Aggies in appearances with 15 and is second in strikeouts with 38.
‘After Combat’ book to draw on veterans’ deployment experiences By Madeline Schulz
An A&M professor and a retired U.S. Army veteran have partnered to shed light on the experiences of combat veterans. Marian Eide, an associate professor of English at Texas A&M, and Ret. Col. Michael Gibler, a Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service Training specialist, have come together to gather narratives of United States soldiers returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The project, now three years in the making, is called “After Combat: Soldiers Return Home from the Millennial Wars.” Eide said the project aims to give Americans a new perspective on the daily conduct of these conflicts and their participants. “For veterans returning from eight months of ordinary days in Fallujah or Kandahar, popular media representations can be alienating or dispiriting,” Eide said. “The purpose of this project, ‘After Combat,’ is to introduce readers to these wars from the perspective of their combatants. The book manuscript compiles stories of deployment as told by veterans.” Eide and Gibler have spoken to 22 men and women from around the nation in anonymous narratives on their experiences in the wars, from the first invasions to collaborations with local armies. The duo intends to publish the narratives in a book format sometime in the next year. “I’d say that for the most part, people who’ve deployed don’t see themselves as heroes, and so they don’t think that they have a story to tell,” Eide said. “And what we’ve done is to offer them an opportunity to talk about their deployment anonymously and that’s really the key — not just to getting the stories that have some difficult material in them, but also getting the ordinary person that doesn’t feel like a hero [to] share his or her story.” Cory Denton, business management senior and retired U.S. Army infantryman, said the project has the potential to help the public understand what veterans go through and correct the skewed vision of veterans that Hollywood presents. AFTER COMBAT ON PG. 2
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NEW ACE ON THE HILL Lawrence Smelser — THE BATTALION
Sophomore pitcher uses offseason to cement place in Aggie rotation By Heath Clary A year ago at this time, Brigham Hill was a freshman pitcher near the end of the Texas A&M pitching staff. He pitched in seven games throughout that freshman season, logging 18.2 innings and an unsightly 5.30 ERA. Fast forward to April 2016, and the sophomore righty found himself as the Aggies’ Friday night starter in one of the toughest conferences in the nation. In his first weekend start of his career last Friday, Hill dominated the Georgia Bulldogs for 6.1 innings of shutout ball in a 5-0 win. His change up danced, his fastball was under control and he played a vital role in ending the team’s four-game losing streak. The transformation from little-used re-
liever to front line starter is not necessarily tangible. Hill did not grow taller, increase his fastball velocity or add a new pitch to his repertoire. Instead his growth as a pitcher can be attributed to a change in philosophy. “I just felt like I had something to prove last year. I didn’t pitch with a confidence level or anything, I was hoping out there,” Hill said. “This year I just wanted to play with confidence and just throw strikes. Last year I’d get behind in the count and walk people and it got me in a lot of trouble. This year it’s about pounding the strike zone and good things have happened.” A&M head coach Rob Childress said once the 6-foot, 185-pound right-hander relaxed on the mound and stopped trying to do too much, positive results followed. “He’s the same guy he was last year,” Childress said. “He has just stopped thinking so much and stopped putting a lot of self-induced pressure on him, and he’s just
being himself.” To his teammates, Hill is a calm, cool and collected guy whose stoic attitude on the mound makes him successful. “Brigham is laid back. He never gets too high and he never gets too low, which I think is really an overlooked trait these days,” said outfielder J.B. Moss, the Aggies’ senior leadoff hitter. “You can always count on Brigham throwing strikes. He’s not going to show a lot of emotion out there — he’s just going to go out there and do his job, and that’s what we all like about him.” That unflappable demeanor has yielded tremendous results so far this season. Hill is 4-0 with a miniscule 1.42 ERA in 44.1 innings pitched, the second-most innings on the team. Arguably more impressive than his numbers, though, has been the way in which he has pitched. Hill has been employed as both a HILL ON PG. 3
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