Memorial Student Center

A Congressional Medal of Honor recipient is honored

Every Aggie has a home away from home in the Memorial Student Center. It is a place where students and guests can go to do a variety of things. However, this facility is unique because it is also a memorial. After the world wars, the alumni wanted to build a memorial to honor all those Aggie that had lost their lives during the World Wars. At the same time, the students wanted to build a student center. The alumni and the students put their ideas together and the MSC was built. It was dedicated on Muster Day (April 21) of 1951 to all Aggies that gave their lives in wars past or future. In front of the MSC there are 55 trees that surround O.R. Simpson Drill Field to honor the 55 Aggies that gave their lives in World War I. In addition, in the front hallway there are seven picture frames of seven Aggies who served during World War II and received the Congressional Medal of Honor. Under their photographs specimen medals are displayed along with brief explanations of their heroic efforts.

As well as serving as a memorial, the students did get their student center. Today the MSC houses three art galleries, three eating facilities, a barber shop, a craft shop, a bookstore, the browsing library, an eight-lane bowling ally, a pool hall, an arcade, a seventy-room hotel, and The Flagroom. The Flagroom, also known as the 'Living Room of Texas A&M', is a place where students often gather to study, meet friends to eat, have meetings, or just to take a nap between classes.

The MSC is a living memorial, so please help us to respect those fallen Aggies by removing your hats when you step inside the building and by not walking on the grass surrounding the facility.

"No more convincing testimony could be given to the manner in which the men of Texas A&M lived up to the ideals and principles inculcated in their days on the campus than the simple statement that the Congressional Medal of Honor has been awarded to six former students, that 46 took part in the heroic defense of Bataan and Corregidor, and that nearly 700 are on the list of our battle dead."
--Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1946