Justin “JT” Tash ’15 found a personal connection to Texas A&M through a bond to the grandfather he never knew.
Texas A&M University is a wondrous place. I have had the privilege of calling this campus home for the past three years, and I am amazed by it every day. Through classes, the core values and my service in the Corps of Cadets, Texas A&M has taught me more about who I am and what I am made of than any other experience in my life.
Of course, I had no idea this is how I would feel when I came to College Station as a freshman.
I arrived on campus for the first time with what I quickly learned was a unique background due to the fact that I was not a native Texan. Practically everyone around me had known about Texas A&M since birth and wanted to go here since they could speak. And everyone was absolutely in love with football.
I was none of those things.
The Tash family has never fit a traditional mold. As a military family, we traveled to many places. My brother and I were born in Honolulu, Hawaii, and Lakenheath, England, respectively. My parents, Lowell and Beverly, survived a number of trials: my dad was frequently absent due to his service in Air Force special operations; our family moved six times in five years to three different countries; my mom switched jobs multiple times; and they lived on the island of Luzon in the Philippines during the largest volcanic eruption of the century (Mount Pinatubo). Our family dealt with all of this with little to no support from other relatives.
So in the fall of 2011, when I attended Freshmen Orientation Week (FOW) for the Corps of Cadets, I had never felt more alone. Everyone around me was talking about how they had always wanted to be in the Corps and the Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band. Most of them knew where the others had grown up, and they all seemed to have some connection to this place. When I piped up and said I was born in England, had only learned about Texas A&M just in time to apply, joined the band without ever seeing a performance, and that football was probably my least favorite sport, I received looks of awestruck disbelief. There is nothing like a warm welcome for an outsider who already feels alienated. I was suddenly lonelier than I had ever been.
FOW was the hardest week of my life. It was a constant stream of learning how to be a cadet—how to make a bed; how to get in and out of uniform as fast as possible; how to march in the greatest band in the land; how to make a bed (again); how to get yelled at and keep moving; and how to run, sweat and be the most tired that you’ve ever been but to find a way to keep going. This did not help my feeling that I simply did not belong here. I felt like the cards were stacked against me, and that the odds I had to overcome were too great. I was excited for classes to start because it meant the end of FOW, but my excitement was overshadowed by a heavy heart.
My first day of classes at Texas A&M is one that I will never forget. My Monday started with a 10:20 a.m. History 106 class in the Animal Industries Building, which I had heard described as “the haunted-looking one.” Being the naïve young freshman that I was and not wanting to be late—combined with an intense desire to get off of the Corps-controlled Quad as fast as possible—I found myself there at about 9 a.m. With nothing to do and not knowing where else to go, I decided to look around.
That’s when I made a discovery that changed my life at Texas A&M forever.
I walked around the building twice before I found a panel of old photos, yellowed with time. In one of them, a familiar face caught my eye. Standing next to some other men and a horse was a man in a cowboy hat who looked exactly like my dad. I knew it couldn’t be him because the first thing in the description was the date 1939. My dad wasn’t even close to being born that year. As I read on, the description began to list the names of the men. The name of the man in the hat blew me away.
“Lowell H. Tash Sr.”
The man in the photograph was my grandfather!
I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had never met Lowell Sr. because he had passed away when my dad was 18. My father rarely talked about him, yet there he was, in a picture that identified him as a former researcher and teacher in the Department of Animal Science at Texas A&M. As soon as I could, I went to the Cushing Library to look through records and confirmed that I wasn’t dreaming. In addition to working at Texas A&M, Lowell Sr. had been a captain in the U.S. Army, had fought in the Pacific Theater during World War II and had been employed by the King Ranch.
This discovery changed my outlook on Texas A&M. Knowing that my grandfather had been here and that he had helped mold this campus in even a small way made me feel like I had found a place where I belonged. My grandfather had taught cadets wearing the same uniform that I was wearing, and it made me feel like I was closer to him, even though I had never met him. This family connection was the catalyst for what has become one of the best experiences of my life. As I enter my senior year as a communication major and as the infantry band commander of the Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band, and as I prepare myself for life outside of Aggieland as a future United States Air Force officer, I am confident that Texas A&M has given me the tools I need.
No matter what hurdles I have jumped, or what odds I have faced, and even though I still dislike football, I have found my connection to Texas A&M.
By Justin “JT” Tash ’15
This article was originally published in the fall 2014 issue of Spirit magazine.
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