It's been 10 years and I've still got a hard time dealing with it.
Second only to the Monday before Thanksgiving 1994... the day that I got the phone call that my dad had died suddenly at the age of 53... the morning of Bonfire's collapse was the worst day of my life. I felt then, and still feel today, that I had a part of my gut ripped out... that I lost family... that as horrible as I felt, I couldn't even begin to fathom the pain that the parents of the deceased felt... that I was in a small way partly responsible for the continuance of a tradition that went horribly wrong that night and took the lives of 12 kids that were each priceless and were poised to do so much good in the world for decades to come, that would now never raise families of their own.
I worked extensively on cut and stack site my freshman year (as a Corps member of company L2) and my senior year (as a “non-reg” Moore Hall resident). What media stories always point out about Bonfire was that it "symbolized Aggies' burning desire to beat the hell outta t.u."... but they almost always leave off the rest... that it symbolized the love that all Aggies have for Texas A&M. For me… and for at least 87% of the Ags who worked on it over the years... the latter was the most important. Believe me, I love to kick the horns in the junk, but that takes a far distant back seat to my love for A&M.
When you worked on Bonfire, you walked in the footsteps of Aggies past, many of whom went off to fight and die in World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam... doing what they did, the way they did it, for the same reason they did it. And I knew that in subsequent years, new Ags would walk in my footsteps. At most schools, what ties the generations together is tailgating and sitting in the stands on fall Saturdays. At A&M, what tied the generations together was putting on your filthy work clothes and hard hat, losing all distinctions of where you came from and how much money your daddy made, all distinctions of Corps vs not, and working your butt off hour after hour, weekend after weekend, night after night, to build a monument to all that is Texas A&M, past-present-future. The best thing about burning Bonfire is that it got the current one out of the way so that next year's could be built. It's all about the act of building Bonfire that made it unique and made A&M unique. It was something that no other school had and no school ever will.
My eldest son Andrew (’12) worked quite a bit on "Student Bonfire" last year as a freshman, off campus. I have photo of him, in his Bonfire work clothes and pot, with his burning Bonfire in the background. He better understands now what it means to be an Aggie.
Personally, I was humiliated by stories I’ve heard personally from the family of the one of the fallen of the cold-shoulder treatment by A&M officials after the Bonfire collapse. No money can ever bring those kids back, but Texas A&M is cursed for having to be dragged to court to take care of these families. We as an Association of Former Students had an opportunity to do right by these families and we failed… absolutely, miserably failed. A&M and the AFS let their lawyers (not their consciences) dictate their actions. That is a stain on our honor.
So campus Bonfire died and part of Texas A&M died. Now we are talking about bringing it back.
First, we must close the wound. Building a memorial (and it IS a breath-taking memorial) is not enough. It does not absolve our debt. We as an Aggie Family must do right by the 12 families and those whose injuries were serious. The court cases are now closed and settled. Has there ever been an official apology to the Adams, the Breens, the Ebanks, the Framptons, the Hands, the Heards, the Kerlees, the Kimmels, the McClains, the Powells, the Selfs, and the Wests?
Second, if Texas A&M is going to officially sanction Bonfire on campus, there has to be some entity (the school? the AFS? other?) that takes out some sort of liability coverage or bonding for this purpose. This in itself will drive safety measures and controls, because otherwise no insurer would touch this. Aggie Bonfire on campus must be treated like a controlled-entry construction site. There can be absolutely zero tolerance for alcohol or inappropriate behavior. This is a life and death issue. Possession of alcohol or failing a breathalyzer on the site should get you fined and banned for life from working on Bonfire. The fundamental design of the stack needs to be changed (perhaps like the new Student Bonfire) to make it inherently more stable. Those working heavy equipment or getting on the stack should perhaps pass breathalyzer tests. Professional engineers should verify at different points of the process that design specifications are being met. All of this costs money. A helluva lot of money. Either it is worth it to Former Students and the entire A&M community or it is not. We cannot short cut this. All life entails risk, but we can certainly, greatly increase the safety of those Ags... those sons and daughters that parents send to A&M... who would build Bonfire again.
Finally, students have to do the physical work, all of it. Having a contractor come in and build a bonfire is BS. It 100% misses the whole point of Bonfire. You may as well not have one. Supervise it, control entry and actively prohibit alcohol and inappropriate behavior, fund the potential liability... but don't do the work for the students. It is THEIR Bonfire. It's the WORK that ties the generations together... not the burning.
I don't know that Bonfire will ever come back on campus. The most infuriating part of this is that A&M had its early warning (a stack collapse with nobody on it in the early '90s) and A&M, the Association of Former Students, and those students running Bonfire did not take advantage of the wake up call. We stayed with the same design done the same way. Alcohol still found its way to the site. We essentially rolled over and hit the snooze button. As a result, 12 kids are dead and A&M doesn't have a campus Bonfire anymore. It still makes me sick to think about it.
Adam '87
[This message has been edited by Adam87inSA (edited 11/19/2009 7:08a).]
Second only to the Monday before Thanksgiving 1994... the day that I got the phone call that my dad had died suddenly at the age of 53... the morning of Bonfire's collapse was the worst day of my life. I felt then, and still feel today, that I had a part of my gut ripped out... that I lost family... that as horrible as I felt, I couldn't even begin to fathom the pain that the parents of the deceased felt... that I was in a small way partly responsible for the continuance of a tradition that went horribly wrong that night and took the lives of 12 kids that were each priceless and were poised to do so much good in the world for decades to come, that would now never raise families of their own.
I worked extensively on cut and stack site my freshman year (as a Corps member of company L2) and my senior year (as a “non-reg” Moore Hall resident). What media stories always point out about Bonfire was that it "symbolized Aggies' burning desire to beat the hell outta t.u."... but they almost always leave off the rest... that it symbolized the love that all Aggies have for Texas A&M. For me… and for at least 87% of the Ags who worked on it over the years... the latter was the most important. Believe me, I love to kick the horns in the junk, but that takes a far distant back seat to my love for A&M.
When you worked on Bonfire, you walked in the footsteps of Aggies past, many of whom went off to fight and die in World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam... doing what they did, the way they did it, for the same reason they did it. And I knew that in subsequent years, new Ags would walk in my footsteps. At most schools, what ties the generations together is tailgating and sitting in the stands on fall Saturdays. At A&M, what tied the generations together was putting on your filthy work clothes and hard hat, losing all distinctions of where you came from and how much money your daddy made, all distinctions of Corps vs not, and working your butt off hour after hour, weekend after weekend, night after night, to build a monument to all that is Texas A&M, past-present-future. The best thing about burning Bonfire is that it got the current one out of the way so that next year's could be built. It's all about the act of building Bonfire that made it unique and made A&M unique. It was something that no other school had and no school ever will.
My eldest son Andrew (’12) worked quite a bit on "Student Bonfire" last year as a freshman, off campus. I have photo of him, in his Bonfire work clothes and pot, with his burning Bonfire in the background. He better understands now what it means to be an Aggie.
Personally, I was humiliated by stories I’ve heard personally from the family of the one of the fallen of the cold-shoulder treatment by A&M officials after the Bonfire collapse. No money can ever bring those kids back, but Texas A&M is cursed for having to be dragged to court to take care of these families. We as an Association of Former Students had an opportunity to do right by these families and we failed… absolutely, miserably failed. A&M and the AFS let their lawyers (not their consciences) dictate their actions. That is a stain on our honor.
So campus Bonfire died and part of Texas A&M died. Now we are talking about bringing it back.
First, we must close the wound. Building a memorial (and it IS a breath-taking memorial) is not enough. It does not absolve our debt. We as an Aggie Family must do right by the 12 families and those whose injuries were serious. The court cases are now closed and settled. Has there ever been an official apology to the Adams, the Breens, the Ebanks, the Framptons, the Hands, the Heards, the Kerlees, the Kimmels, the McClains, the Powells, the Selfs, and the Wests?
Second, if Texas A&M is going to officially sanction Bonfire on campus, there has to be some entity (the school? the AFS? other?) that takes out some sort of liability coverage or bonding for this purpose. This in itself will drive safety measures and controls, because otherwise no insurer would touch this. Aggie Bonfire on campus must be treated like a controlled-entry construction site. There can be absolutely zero tolerance for alcohol or inappropriate behavior. This is a life and death issue. Possession of alcohol or failing a breathalyzer on the site should get you fined and banned for life from working on Bonfire. The fundamental design of the stack needs to be changed (perhaps like the new Student Bonfire) to make it inherently more stable. Those working heavy equipment or getting on the stack should perhaps pass breathalyzer tests. Professional engineers should verify at different points of the process that design specifications are being met. All of this costs money. A helluva lot of money. Either it is worth it to Former Students and the entire A&M community or it is not. We cannot short cut this. All life entails risk, but we can certainly, greatly increase the safety of those Ags... those sons and daughters that parents send to A&M... who would build Bonfire again.
Finally, students have to do the physical work, all of it. Having a contractor come in and build a bonfire is BS. It 100% misses the whole point of Bonfire. You may as well not have one. Supervise it, control entry and actively prohibit alcohol and inappropriate behavior, fund the potential liability... but don't do the work for the students. It is THEIR Bonfire. It's the WORK that ties the generations together... not the burning.
I don't know that Bonfire will ever come back on campus. The most infuriating part of this is that A&M had its early warning (a stack collapse with nobody on it in the early '90s) and A&M, the Association of Former Students, and those students running Bonfire did not take advantage of the wake up call. We stayed with the same design done the same way. Alcohol still found its way to the site. We essentially rolled over and hit the snooze button. As a result, 12 kids are dead and A&M doesn't have a campus Bonfire anymore. It still makes me sick to think about it.
Adam '87
[This message has been edited by Adam87inSA (edited 11/19/2009 7:08a).]