The Fightin’ Fred Ruoff Award, Auburn Army ROTC

The Auburn University Army ROTC class of 2000 is pleased to announce that 2LT Rachael Blaz was the first recipient of the annual Fightin’ Fred Ruoff Award. The award is given to humble and selfless cadets that quickly learn lessons from activities and examples and improve themselves and their units.

The award is a starter library containing 50 books that can help military leaders from Lieutenant to Lieutenant Colonel to become Renaissance Officers that can meet the demands of the modern JIIM-Plus world.

The books may vary in titles but will always include lessons in leadership, selflessness, valor, candor, foreign culture, national level policy making, strategic thinking, teamwork, diplomacy, the intelligence community, friendly alliances, joint operations, religion, economics, small wars, terrorism and other topics of interest.

The Ruoff award is named after the selfless and humble yet efficient and successful Special Forces Officer that trained Auburn cadets for the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and beyond. He was a master at teaching leadership, tactics, and problem solving while reminding the students to look at the big picture and think strategically. Today Fred Ruoff guides the training of SOF forces at the JFK Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg.

If you are interested in helping to build the next generation of Renaissance Officers please borrow our idea and create your own award to enable a young person entering your profession.