WHAT IS A CAG ANYHOW?

BY DICK FISS

Depending upon context, CAG is an acronym with many meanings. For those Washington Beltway insiders, it means Comptroller and Auditor General. Those conversant with Special Forces nomenclature view CAG as the Combat Applications Group. Naval aviators, of which we have more than a few in our class, plus fans of the show Battlestar Galactica, salute their Commander, Air Group. But for members of the Class of 1967, CAG means Classmate Affinity Group.

For ’67 the genesis of CAG dates back to early 2020 and the emergence of the COVID pandemic. Our class mission was to find ways to sustain our camaraderie and cohesiveness so evident at our 50th Reunion in spite of the difficulty of gathering in person. To facilitate classmates’ ability to make contact with fellow members of athletic teams, eating clubs or extracurricular activities they engaged in at Princeton, we had to compile the CAG Directory.

This was no easy task. The University had very incomplete data in its records. The best source was information submitted by classmates for our 50th Reunion Yearbook. Finally, we had each list vetted by team captains, club officers and activity group leaders to determine membership in each group. In the spirit of inclusiveness, we defined membership as those classmates who engaged in that team / club / activity at any point in their years at Princeton. Once the names were selected, we had to research the contact information—telephone numbers and email addresses. It took three months to compile this directory with 41 groups and then post it in the class website. It is located under the “Classmates” tab.

To encourage the use of this directory, Dave Martin and Dick Fiss, the architects of this effort, commenced the search for classmates willing to serve as leaders for the individual CAGs. To date, 27 of the CAGs have leaders. Mainly through the use of Zoom technology, there have been multiple scores of group meetings. The overall impression is that ’67 classmates enjoy each others company, care what is happening in classmates’ lives and relish remembering our shared experiences at Princeton in the 1960s.

Dave and Dick have just moved on to a new initiative, with the acronym (what else) of SEAs, Service and Experience Affiliations. More to come on this venture as we get closer to our 55th. Heading the CAG effort as we move forward are Ron Grossman (ronman37@aol.com) and Lynn Moore (lmoore@cwlaw.com).