Maverick Veterans’ Voices: Interview with Colonel Jerry B. Houston

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Interviewee: Col. Jerry B. Houston

Interviewer: Melissa Gonzales

Date of Interview: February 24, 2013

Location of Interview: Arlington, Texas

Transcriber: Diane Saylors

Special Collections UTA Libraries

GONZALES: This is Melissa Gonzales. Today is February 24, 2013, and I am interviewing Col. Jerry B. Houston for the first time. This interview is taking place at the University of Texas at Arlington Central Library in Arlington, Texas. This interview is sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts and is part of the Maverick Veterans' Voices Project.

GONZALES: So we'll get started. Where are you from originally?

HOUSTON: Arlington, Texas. My great-grandfather was one of the original founding families of Arlington, Texas in 1872, Joe Collins, and my grandfather was the 00:01:00city health officer in Arlington. My grandfather on my mother's side owned a hotel in downtown Arlington, and so as a boy I lived in downtown Arlington in the old hotel and eventually moved down on Abram and went to South Side High School and eventually lived where the current telephone company is at West and Abram Street.

The college didn't extend any further south than Brazos Hall, and the road stopped at the creek, Mary's Creek, and I had a rope swing on Mary's Creek that we would play with. So I'm a resident of Arlington. I moved to Fort Worth when I was twelve and went to schools there until I came to Arlington and then went into the military.

GONZALES: So did your high school have an ROTC program?

HOUSTON: We did. I went to Arlington Heights High School in Fort Worth, Texas, 00:02:00and I took three years in ROTC, enjoyed all three years a great deal, and I got to know the drill team there. I was the commander of the drill team, and I was the Corps Commander my senior year at the high school.

And I was actually recruited by the Sam Houston Rifles to come to Arlington for the Sam Houston Rifles. I really thought a lot of them, so that's what I did. That's why I came to Arlington was to be a member of the Sam Houston Rifles.

GONZALES: Since they recruited you, did they offer a scholarship or any assistance?

HOUSTON: No, no. In those days there was no scholarship, and I had to try out just like any other individual. I wasn't a shoo-in. But I came in and there were six of us that were selected in September of my freshman year to be members of the Sam Houston Rifles.

GONZALES: And what was your major?

HOUSTON: I was a psychology major.

GONZALES: Was there a certain reason why you chose psychology?

HOUSTON: I thought it was a good fit with the military, and so that's the reason that I went that route, and it turned out to be a good selection for me.

GONZALES: What were your first impressions of the school?

HOUSTON: Well, first impressions were of course focused mainly on the military. I really thought I would like the Sam Houston Rifles and found out that that was true. I did like the Sam Houston Rifles a lot.

And then I liked the atmosphere around campus because in 1959 when I started here, on campus, we probably had less than two thousand students that actually lived on and around campus. And everyone else was a commuter. So we got to know each other on campus and we had a very close community that we got together with each other over the years, and so it was great.

GONZALES: So in addition to your ROTC and the Sam Houston Rifles, were there 00:04:00other campus activities that you engaged in, any traditions?

HOUSTON: Yes. Of course, the Sam Houston Rifles, the Corps of Cadets. I was a member of the Circle K, which was the Kiwanis Club, a member of the Psychology Club, and very active in other things in the University. Loved the football games and that tradition.

GONZALES: Would you like to see it come back?

HOUSTON: Sure. Yeah. I think all of the alumni feel that way.

GONZALES: Yes. What was your course load like? Were you full- or part-time?

HOUSTON: No, I was full-time and I normally carried around seventeen to eighteen hours a semester. And I didn't have any trouble with that.

GONZALES: Did you work?

HOUSTON: No, I did not work. I was very fortunate. My parents had gotten me an insurance policy when I was one-year-old that paid me fifty dollars a month 00:05:00during the nine months at school, and I lived in a dormitory. In those days Brazos Hall cost us $12.50 a month, but when I became a sophomore, I was the janitor for one of the ramps that year and so that paid for my room. And in the last two years, I was a counselor, and that paid for my room. And so with the $50 in the summer, I was a greenskeeper at a golf course, and I got enough money together to pay tuition, and so that's the way I got through school.

GONZALES: Were there any professors or instructors that significantly influenced you?

HOUSTON: Sure. I guess most of them were from the military. Charles McDowell was the Professor of Military Science while I was here, and we developed a very close relationship. In fact, we visited with each other through the rest of my 00:06:00life. And of course, he was an instructor after he retired from the Army, and he was an instructor here at the University. So every time I'd come back in town, I was able to see Charles and talk with him.

And then there was another gentleman. There was a Lt. Col. Max Manifold, who was another ROTC instructor, and I thought the world of him. Max was actually a 2nd Lieutenant that was in the Rangers that took Pointe du Hoc in Normandy and so one of those figures that you look up to. And then Gen. Latham was also my instructor as a freshman, and so he's someone that I've looked up to all of my career.

GONZALES: Is that how you met Rex Latham?

HOUSTON: Rex, no. Rex was actually an underclassman when I was at Arlington. He was two years behind me, and Rex and I just--he joined the Sam Houston Rifles. 00:07:00We developed a friendship. In fact, in the Sam Houston Rifles, as you joined, you pick an old man, someone that you can be with, and so Rex picked me. So Rex is my young man on the Sam Houston Rifles.

And of course, I stayed in contact with Gen. Latham, and when I came back to teach at Arlington as an Assistant Professor of Military in 1970, Gen. Latham's son, Mark, was in my first class as a freshman, so I've known the family for a long time.

GONZALES: So upon graduation in 1963, where did you head after that?

HOUSTON: I was commissioned on August 26, 1963, and on August 28, I got in the car and went to Fort Benning, Georgia. I went to the Infantry Basic Course and then I went to the Winter Rangers School and then to the Airborne School. I finished there in late February and headed straight for Fort Carson, Colorado.

In 1966--or 1965 I got one hundred and seventy--I was a company commander in the infantry--I got one hundred and seventy kids in from off the street. They were still in civilian clothes, and we put them in uniform and took them to basic training and Advanced Individual Training, and the day that finished a battalion commander called all the company commanders down to his office and said, "We've just been identified as the Ninth Maneuver Battalion for the First Cav Division, and we go to Vietnam in August." So we had from late February until August to train them for Vietnam and took them to Vietnam. We were together in Vietnam for a year.

In 1992 we started a veterans' group from that group, and we now have over five hundred members that come to reunions every two years.

GONZALES: Wow!

HOUSTON:So that's where I got started.

GONZALES: What were your job assignments?

HOUSTON: Mainly infantry for the first fifteen years. Of course, the military here or Vietnam--I came back to Fort Wolters, Texas, which at the time was training helicopter pilots for work in Vietnam basically, and I was one of twelve non-rated officers on base. Everybody else was flight qualified.

I met my wife there while I was stationed and went back for my second tour to Vietnam, and we got married in the middle of that tour. My father had passed away, and I'd come home for his funeral, and we'd already planned to get married and decided that was a good time to do it so my mom could help in that and be a part of that.

Then came back to the Infantry Advanced Course, and then to Fort Terry for three years as an Assistant Professor. And went to Fort Hood and did the basic 00:10:00infantry things, and then I was selected as Secretary-General staff at Fort Hood for the Second Armored Division and served in that capacity for two years.

And then went on to Fort Leavenworth to college to the Command General Staff College and I had met a Brigadier General while at Fort Hood that called me and said he wanted me to come to work for him in research and development in Detroit, and I did. And I was in the project office that brought the Bradley Fighting Vehicle into production.

And then I had a two-year tour in Saudi Arabia. And then in the early '80s, I had a technical system field team of thirty officers and soldiers, and our job was to train the Saudi Army to use a brigade's worth of U.S. equipment. I was there for two years with my family in-country, and it was a great tour, much calmer than it is today.

And came back and ended up in the Pentagon and spent the rest of my years in the Pentagon. I ended up as a project manager for two computer projects in the Army. One project was to integrate the computer systems and all of the project managers throughout the United States into a single system back into the Pentagon and the other was to put in high-speed networks in the Pentagon for the acquisitions agency team.

Then before that, I had become the Congressional Affairs Officer for one of the Assistant Secretaries of the Army and my job each year was to get the Army's budget for procurement in the R&D approved. And my job was to do all the administrative part of it, run the hearings, do all the paperwork, answer all the questions, and get the budget approved. And the last budget I worked on was twenty-two billion dollars.

GONZALES: Did you find that people were open to the R&D for the military, or was it difficult to negotiate for those funds?

HOUSTON: No. No, no. No. Of course, everybody negotiated for funds, but, no. The Army divided the funds that they were given and because the Bradley Fighting Vehicle was such a prominent program at the time, we didn't have much trouble. Other programs did, and you have to pick and choose.

For example, when I was at the Congressional Affairs Office, the three-star general that I worked for called me in and he said, "Jerry, I'm retiring, but the one thing I want you to do is protect this new program called the GPS system," and I said, "Okay." So each year the Army had money to put satellites up for GPS. We didn't know what it was. And every year when we put the budget out for Congress would zero the budget out for that, and we'd have to go and 00:13:00negotiate, and so for the next four years that's what I did every year, they would zero out the GPS system, and I'd go in and get the money back for it. And now I know what the GPS system is because I use one. (Gonzales laughs) But that's where it started.

GONZALES: So you mentioned two tours in Vietnam.

HOUSTON: Yes. Yeah, my first tour of duty, I was the headquarters company commander for an infantry cavalry unit. My basic job was just keeping track of the base camps and the headquarters and the field units, re-supplying them, keeping them supplied, and keeping the headquarters going. Mainly in the flow of the command post, whenever they moved, I'd have to bring in Chinooks and load it up and move it to another site.

And then my second tour of duty, I was a company commander for the first four months of an infantry company, and then I was a battalion supply officer that--a 00:14:00brigade supply officer, the BS-4, for a brigade in the First Cav Division and spent eight months basically running a small base camp for the brigade.

GONZALES: So you--I'm trying to understand the timeline when you came-- when you returned from Vietnam.

HOUSTON: Okay.

GONZALES: Because you were an Assistant Professor in 1970?

HOUSTON: Yes, assistant professor in 1970. By that time I had completed my second tour in Vietnam. My first started in '66 and ended in '67, and my second tour started in '68, ended in '69. And then I went to the Advanced Course for Infantry at Fort Benning and from there I came straight to Arlington as an Assistant Professor of Military Science.

GONZALES: So what classes did you teach here?

HOUSTON: My basic class was freshmen, but over the years I branched out and taught some of the junior classes, a few of the senior classes, mainly 00:15:00responsible for the drill on Thursday afternoons. That was one of my main things, and then I was also the sponsor of the Jodies at the time, so that took a lot of my time.

GONZALES: Would you mind explaining what the Jodies are?

HOUSTON: Sure. The Jodies were a drill team at the University. It was founded in 1933, and originally it was just an honor group more than a drill team but eventually evolved into a drill team and developed a fantastic reputation and started to compete in the drill team circuit among colleges around the United States and did very well. In fact, we always won, which was great.

My era here as a cadet, a drill, and ceremony was very, very prominent and most universities had a drill team, so there was a lot of competition. When I came back in 1970, some of it had dissipated, some of the competition had dissipated. 00:16:00There was still enough there to keep our interest and keep us going. And we did a lot of parades and a lot of things like that. When I was here as a cadet, I was able to take the team to an NFL football game in the Cotton Bowl and perform at halftime, which was quite a thrill.

The year before I got here, they had marched in the inaugural parade in Washington, DC, and so that was quite a kudo for the team. But very, very well-known throughout the Dallas/Fort Worth area both as a competitive unit and as one that had parades and ceremonies and things for people.

GONZALES: You mentioned being involved with training and R&D.

HOUSTON: Um-hmm.

GONZALES: And I imagine in Vietnam you saw some combat as well.

HOUSTON: Yes.

GONZALES: Do you feel that your preparation here at UTA helped you?

HOUSTON: Oh, absolutely! Yeah, sure. A lot of the times you don't realize how 00:17:00much you really learned out of ROTC because it was subtle, but we did learn leadership. We did learn how to logically address a problem. We did learn that there wasn't anything that you couldn't do. And so that served me well throughout my career. Working with people was what ROTC was all about, and that's what the Army's all about, so it was a great place to learn. And I owe a lot to what the military science department gave me here.

GONZALES: Were you able to stay in touch with your family while you were overseas serving your tours in Vietnam?

HOUSTON: Sure. Yeah. Mail was the main--in those days that was really the only 00:18:00form of communication. If we would go on R and R outside of Vietnam we could get to a telephone system where you could call, but there wasn't anything in Vietnam per se on a regular basis that you could make a call. So it was by mail, and so you looked forward to mail call every day because you could certainly get mail from home, and that was important.

GONZALES: How did your family deal with you being overseas in Vietnam at the time?

HOUSTON: Well, fortunately for me--of course, my mother and father were very concerned for me and I wasn't married during my first tour, nor had I met my wife. But I had met her between the two tours, and we had planned to get married in either Hawaii or Japan, but at the death of my father in April, it just seemed the logical thing to do. And so certainly my wife was concerned about me while we were there, but we corresponded back-and-forth by mail, and we did an R 00:19:00and R in Hawaii halfway through that period of time from when we got married to when I got home, so that mitigated a lot of the problems involved with being away from home.

GONZALES: So I take it, that's what you did for leave while you were over there?

HOUSTON: Yes. Yes. I just simply took a leave when I was married. Now, before I was married in my first tour, my best friend, a fellow named Jerry Brown, he and I went to Japan together and spent a week. I had a great time. On return, he was an advisor with the Montagnards in Vietnam, and I was with an American unit. But he was tragically killed in an ambush in May of that year two weeks before he was to come home.

And I got word of that--I got three letters one night: one from my parents, one 00:20:00from a close friend, and one from him. And my parents had told me about his death and the close friend had said that Jerry had left three letters: one for me, one for him, and one for his mother and dad. And so I read his letter, and in his letter, he told me that just be advised that he still had a date-of-rank on me. (Gonzales laughs) So very emotional, and he was quite an individual.

His mother put a book together of his letters. He was quite a writer, and he had written them a letter, and in the letter, he said, "At my funeral, I want no sad songs." And so he said the song that he did want was the chariot song. And then 00:21:00when they played "Taps," at the end of "Taps," he wanted a bugle call for Charge. (Gonzales laughs)

And he was one of those individuals that everyone just loved, and so he was dearly missed by everyone. And in Fort Worth, he was known as The Kool-Aid Kid. He found out the Montagnards loved Kool-Aid, and so the Fort Worth Star-Telegram put on a Kool-Aid campaign and they would collect Kool-Aid and send it to him. And so when he was killed, it was all over the papers because the Kool-Aid Kid was gone. And so very emotional.

GONZALES: Had you ever been overseas before you'd gone to--

HOUSTON: No, I had not. My first trip to Vietnam, I flew to Vietnam in a C-130. It took fifty-two hours, and we left Fort Carson and landed in Travis Air Force Base, Hawaii, Wake Island, Guam, and then into Vietnam.

GONZALES: What were your impressions when you first landed?

HOUSTON: Well, we thought we were going to straight into combat, and so when we landed, we were prepared to fight off the airplane and it wasn't that way. It was a very secure area, so that was not an issue. And it took some adjustment, but it wasn't long before we had everything together.

And one of the things about Vietnam, you had secure areas. You had places you could go where you felt secure, and you didn't have to worry about getting shot or somebody taking a potshot at you. Every once in a while, you might get a 00:23:00rocket coming into the facility, but it was rare.

And so unlike the combat that we see today, where you can go out on the road and get an IED almost immediately, we didn't have that. And so I think that's a big difference between fighting today and what we had because we did have the secure areas where you could rest and relax. Now, when you went out in the field, that was a wholly different thing. And it took a long time for us to figure out the best way to fight in that environment. It was totally different than anything that the Army had ever done before. So it took some while to figure out how to do that.

GONZALES: How did you transition from that kind of combat experience to coming back here and then teaching?

HOUSTON: Okay. It wasn't hard for me. I didn't have a lot of traumatic 00:24:00experiences when I was in the military in Vietnam. I was in some action, but it was not severe. And so I didn't have a lot of the trauma that a lot of the people did. I wasn't in an area where there was a great deal of animosity toward the Army, but I guess I just blocked it out myself. I just ignored it and went on and did the job that I knew I had to do. And so as I say, mine was fairly smooth.

GONZALES: Were you awarded any medals or citations, and if so, how did you get them?

HOUSTON:Yeah. Well, in the military you don't try to achieve a citation or an award. They come along periodically. And I got the normal awards that most 00:25:00people get for doing a job sometimes better than another job you did, and so I got most of those medals. I did get a Bronze Star for Valor in Vietnam and probably not warranted, but I got one. And then I did have two Legion of Merits at the end of my career: once when I left the Pentagon and once when I retired. And I did have the Parachute Badge, and I did go to Ranger School, so I had that tab.

GONZALES: Tell me more about your time at the Pentagon.

HOUSTON: Pentagon was--I liked the Pentagon a lot. The thing that I liked about the Pentagon was that the people in the Pentagon--it was a very hectic time, it was a very busy time. But all the people that I worked with were professionals, and I know of two officers specifically that lasted less than thirty days in the 00:26:00Army because they just didn't seem to be able to stay up and keep up.

And the thing I appreciated at least in the agency that I worked with if I went to someone and said I needed something, and he would say, okay, when do you need it? And I said this date, and he'd say that's fine. I can get it to you then. And then I could depend on I was going to have it then. And that's pretty comforting to be able to do that. And if he was not able to make that date, he'd come back and see me and say, Jerry, I've bumped into a problem. I have a problem. Do you have any wiggle room? And so by using that, it was a very cooperative environment that I worked in and a very hectic environment, but a very cooperative environment. And so I enjoyed that.

I enjoyed my interface with the Congress. I enjoyed--I had an open invitation to 00:27:00most meetings because of the work with the Congress because I had to be aware of what was going on within the agency. And so I was able to see a lot of what was going on in the military and in the Army at the time, so it was a lot of fun.

GONZALES: Did you receive a post-graduate degree?

HOUSTON: I did. I got a business administration degree from Central Michigan University.

GONZALES: And what made you choose that institution?

HOUSTON: Well, I actually got it through four institutions. I started at UTA and got--I think I got nine hours at Arlington, and then I got six hours, I think, at the University of Missouri at Kansas City while I was at Command and General Staff School, and then I finished it up at University of Central Michigan when I was in the project manager's office in Detroit.

GONZALES: The campus has changed quite a bit since you were here.

HOUSTON: Yes. Yes.

GONZALES: What changes have you noticed that you wish were around when you were a student here or even when you were a faculty member?

HOUSTON: Oh, I don't think I'd make any changes, and I've been involved one way or the other with the University since the day I graduated. I've come back every chance--every opportunity I've had, and since Fort Worth was home that made it easy. My wife was from Mineral Wells, and so when we'd come on vacation, we come to the Dallas/Fort Worth area, and so I'd come back to the University.

So I have seen the University grow over time. I certainly miss the--oh, the feel of the University when the street was in front of the buildings and the trees were coming out and the lights were on and it was at night and the Jodies would come down the street at night. It was a very neat feeling. But I have really 00:29:00been impressed and I think it very rewarding for me to see the growth of the University and how it has grown.

GONZALES: You spoke of your involvement with the University. Describe that-- how you've been involved.

HOUSTON: My involvement has been pretty much centered on the Military Science Department. Of course, that was my love, and so every opportunity that I've had I've interfaced back with them on one form or another. I was involved with helping to form the Sam Houston Rifles Alumni Association in the late '60s, and we remained very active until the Cadet Corps Alumni Association started, and I was on the ground floor of getting that started, and we amalgamated the Sam Houston Rifles into that organization after it was up and running. But just 00:30:00coming down and talking to the cadets, talking to the staff, helping where you can is what I've done.

GONZALES: I've heard that the Sam Houston Rifles are coming back. Can you talk more about that?

HOUSTON: Well, one thing we did find out--a lot of the alumni in the Sam Houston Rifles tried to bring them back, and we found out that doesn't work. It's got to be something that is started by the cadets. It's something they've got to want to do. And that's what's happened. In fact, we were absolutely unaware that they were trying to start back up. And we found out two weeks ago when we were in here for a meeting that they were planning to drill at this event we had today. And so we were thrilled.

And I told the commander today that we did have some members of the Sam Houston Rifles retired here in Arlington and that they would be more than happy to come out and advise them and show them our drills and what we did because right now 00:31:00there's not any legacy left on campus that knows that information. But the alumni do.

GONZALES: So do they have drill charts that you used to learn them?

HOUSTON: No, the Sam Houston Rifles had unique--and most drill teams throughout the era that drill teams were important--they had their own routines. And so they were unique to that organization. And the Sam Houston Rifles had a very unique arm swing, they marched a hundred forty to -forty-five counts in that rather than a hundred and twenty. They handled the rifles much differently than a lot of other teams, so it was unique. And that's the piece that nobody can do but us because we're the only people that know what we were doing.

GONZALES: So will they be asking for some training--

HOUSTON: Oh, I'm sure they will.

GONZALES: Oh, that'll be great.

HOUSTON: Right. And then so there'll be some interface there, and we have enough 00:32:00alumni at Arlington that they'd be happy to come by. But we do know that we can't get in and interfere or try to emulate what we did. This is something the cadets have to do, and it's great training for them because that was where I got a lot of my training with the Sam Houston Rifles.

The nice thing about ROTC and the Military Science Department is they let the cadets do the work and they stand back and advise on what's going on. And so that's where the true learning comes in. As you're going to a competition somewhere, so you have to plan for that competition and what's going to take place at the competition. Or you're going to go to a parade somewhere. Well, you've got to plan the travel and how to get there and what you're going to do and what you're going to drill and how's it going to go.

So that was the main thing that we got out of the Sam Houston Rifles and what I 00:33:00hope they're able to do now. But it's something the kids have to do. We can't do it. It just won't work. We know, we've tried. And so we're very encouraged if there is a small group that wants to do it, and hopefully, it will take hold and go from there.

Unfortunately, one of our motivations was the competition that was around, and so we were competing against--it was something to shoot for. And that's no longer the case. There's very, very, very few drill teams around anymore in military units, and frankly, in today's environment and in the Military Science Departments the focus is not on drill and ceremony. It's not as prevalent as it was when I was a cadet. And so there's not a motivation there from a Military Science point of view. There's a different focus. And so it really takes a unique individual that's really interested in becoming a Jodie.

GONZALES: You had mentioned the veterans' organization that you founded in 1992.

HOUSTON: Yes. Yes.

GONZALES: Can you explain more about that?

HOUSTON: Yes. In May of 1992, I got a call from another Captain that I'd served with in Vietnam, and he said that he'd gotten a call from one of his sergeants and they wanted to try to get a reunion together of that original group that went to Vietnam in 1966. And I had a great idea. So they put together a small reunion at a Holiday Inn in Detroit, Michigan in August. So this was in May, and so I went up in August and I was very concerned about what I was going to bump into with that group because I had no idea of what they had done in the intervening years. But I got to the hotel, it's just like, you know, we'd been 00:35:00together all our lives. And we had 192 people show up. And this is out of a population of probably around six hundred people in Vietnam. So that was quite an outpouring to have 192 show up. And so we decided to form an association and we've been very, very successful.

A battalion has about seven hundred and fifty people in it. That's the strength of a battalion. And we offered our membership to anyone that served in Vietnam in the battalion during that period. We do know that there is somewhere around five thousand names that we have found of people that served in the unit. We have a membership of close to three thousand. And then, as I say, we have an active membership of around five hundred that get together every two years at someplace in the United States. We've been to Nashville, Tennessee. We're going 00:36:00to Springfield, Missouri in two years. We've been to San Antonio; Washington, DC; Colorado Springs. So we travel all over for our reunions.

But it's a great time to get together with the fellows I served with. And now it's their families. Their families are very close, and so it's just like we've never left each other when we get back together. And there's a bond there. There is such a thing as a band of brothers. And there's a bond there that no one else can understand. It is just something unique to be a member of something like that.

GONZALES: Well, we're almost ready to wrap up. I just wanted to ask if there's anything that you would like to contribute that I haven't mentioned.

HOUSTON: Well, I would like to mention that the Cadet Corps Alumni Council has really been a great experience for me. We started the Council in probably 00:37:00around--I've forgotten the exact date--but it's about fifteen years ago. And our goal as alumni of the Military Science Department is to help the Military Science Department in any way we could. And in 1981, my cousin, who was Cecil Roberts had come over to the University and had worked with the University on some memorabilia and things like that, and he decided that the Hall of Honor was a good idea. And so he had the thought and he went to Ray Andrea, who was the Lieutenant Colonel PMS at the time. In fact, Ray passed away last year.

But Ray thought it was a good idea, so Ray and Cecil put it together, and our first Hall of Honor was in 1981. We had ten members that they put in the first 00:38:00time just to get it started. And today we had our thirty-third Hall of Honor and inducted two more members into it. We have a total of ninety-three now, and it's become quite an event here at the college and the University.

The Military Science Department runs it along with the Alumni Association, so it helps our relationship. It gives the alumni a chance to talk with the students, to meet with the students, and vice-versa. And so we think it's a very healthy environment. And we try to help out any way we can. We have started a scholarship program, and we have an endowed scholarship with the University of Texas that's approaching ninety thousand dollars. And then we have some other endowed money that we put aside for our operating budget and we use the interest off those two programs to fund those activities.

And it's been great to renew acquaintances through that organization, and it's something that we think will continue the Military Science Department, and so I've been very honored to be a part of that and to work with that.

And I love the University. I think a lot about the University. I love to come back and glad this program has started.

GONZALES: It's been a pleasure talking with you today.

HOUSTON: Well, thank you. Okay, you too.

GONZALES: I want to thank you, Col. Houston, for taking the time to come and talk with us, and you're very informative, very helpful, and thank you for your service and your contribution toward this Project. Thank you.

HOUSTON: Okay. Thank you.