Cadet In Iconic Bugler Photo Identified

This iconic photo of a bugler with the original Reveille has appeared countless times in Texas Aggie magazine and in many other Texas A&M publications, but the cadet has never before been identified. Anne White Hover recently wrote us to say the unknown bugler is her father, Robert Newton White IV ’46, a fourth-generation Texan from Greenville.

According to Anne, the photo was taken in 1942, when her father was an 18-year-old fish and Aggie bandsman. We asked the experts at the Cushing Memorial Library and Archives to weigh in; after researching it, they responded that while positive verification is impossible, “We believe Anne Hover’s story is valid.”

White served in the U.S. Army in World War II and lost a leg after stepping on a land mine. He returned to graduate from A&M and later became a respected physician. He first saw the photo about 40 years after it was taken when he spotted it in a book he had received as a gift. White died in 1989 at age 65. Hover’s compelling story of her father’s life, including his memories of the morning the photo was taken, follows:


The Story Of The Unknown Bugler

By Anne White Hover  
Midland, Texas

I’ve seen this photo before in books about Texas A&M. You may be interested to know that this unknown bugler has a name and an interesting story and that Texas A&M played a big part in his life.

He was born Robert Newton White IV in Greenville, Texas to a long line of Texas pioneers and ranchers. He died in 1989, at age 65, a beloved medical doctor, father of three daughters and grandfather of nine.

As a fourth generation Texan, his family has strong ties to Texas, Navarro and Hunt County especially. His great grandfather, Robert N. White I, arrived in Texas in 1846 and helped found Corsicana. In fact there is an historical marker in downtown Corsicana to that effect. His maternal great grandfathers were leading figures in the ranching business with famous last names like Waggoner and Harrell.

Life was good in Greenville where his family was very prominent and owned a clothing store named R N White Clothiers. But in 1925, when he was just 2 years old, both of his parents were returning by car from a business trip and were killed in a train/car accident in Caddo Mills, Texas. His beloved grandparents raised him and his 12-year-old sister, Helen.

He graduated high school at the age of 16 and went to a junior college for a year, then entered Texas A&M, class of 46, where he was in the Corps of Cadets and the Aggie Band. (In 1942 it was called the Artillery Field Band of Texas A&M College). According to my mother, he was an 18-year-old freshman during the time of the photo. And the story my father always told us was that the regular bugler was sick and couldn’t blow reveille.
Since Dad was the substitute bugler, he took his place that morning. Tired and sleepy, he got to the bugle, started blowing First Call with the mascot Reveille I sitting there as usual. But on that morning, someone else showed up as well, an unscheduled photographer who unceremoniously snapped this iconic picture that has been reprinted many times in books and calendars. My father really didn’t think anything of it and never saw the picture until about 30 years later when he received a book for his birthday and this picture was in it!

In June of 1943, Daddy joined the US Army and served for almost 3 years. He departed for the European Theater on August 6, 1944 with the 94th Infantry Division. He served in Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 376th Infantry Regiment. The division went into action on September 17, 1944 in Northern France and the Rhineland. According to his military service discharge papers, he was a combat infantryman and a rocket launcher using a 57MM anti-tank gun.

On February 19, 1945 midway between Sinz and Nennig in Germany, in an intense last push  known as the Siegfried Line, he was one of many that stepped on a schu mine. He survived, but lost his right foot and was awarded the Purple Heart. He was 21 years old. He was devastated, but after a long hospital stay and a long wait for a prosthesis, he proved he was as tough as his pioneer ancestors and a true Aggie. Dad not only returned to classes at College Station to graduate from A&M, but went on to become a physician, earning his MD from Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. For the rest of his life, almost no one was aware of his amputation because he never allowed it to become a handicap.

Never missing a beat, he married a beautiful girl from Oklahoma, had three beautiful daughters and practiced medicine in Midland, Texas for almost 40 years. Not having a son, and at the time A&M was a men’s college, he realized that he would not have any children to send to A&M. But even though all of his daughters went to SMU, they were and still are Aggies at heart. He taught us the Aggie War Hymn and we sat in front of the TV or radio every Thanksgiving to hear him yell for the Aggies against those evil Longhorns. He would play the “air bugle” and march around the house along with the band.

As much as he loved Aggieland, he loved this country more, the land that he had served and given so much to at such a young age. He flew the American flag every day on a big flagpole in front of our house that was located on a busy street. He would march to and from the flagpole and he taught his daughters and our friends how to salute the flag and raise and lower it, fold it and respect it. He would play the “air bugle” and we all learned the bugle calls; First Call, Reveille, Assembly, To the Colors and Taps.

Reveille, the mascot, is precious and means so much to A&M and its values, but that other precious living thing in this photograph is my father, who lived the life that A&M promotes; a life of loyalty, tradition and hard work. You see, the photograph has always been interesting to me because of the way my father looks. He is young, standing on two real legs, his arms are holding a real bugle, and he is blowing strong and clear to get the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets out of bed and on with their lives.