After graduating (EE’95), I took a job where I did a lot of traveling for a telecommunications vendor. I went around the United States and was in a different airport every week. The first time I went to the Northwest, I flew into Washington. I worked on a site there and went on to Seattle. While in Seattle, I was driving along a main road and noticed a car that seemed to be trying to flag me down. I was not sure but they were pointing to my car and yelling. I was in a rental so I assumed that it was a flat or I was breaking some law or I did not know what. A little apprehensive, I rolled down my windows as they pulled up next to me. Then I understood what they were yelling - “War Eagle!!” My orange AU baseball cap in the back window was a magnet to them across 3 lanes of traffic. Auburn was their adopted school since their local college did not have a football team and the state teams were not very good. We pulled over and I told them I was a graduate. We talked about “Nix to Sanders”, “Bo over the top”, and my experiences while a student. They said that they knew AU was a special place when they watched the Iron Bowl and saw the pre-game atmosphere in our stadium and in Auburn, Alabama. That was a truly unique experience. Our “family” is so special that it shows in everything we do and I imagine others are drawn to our Tigers not necessarily for football greatness as much as “the Auburn experience”….
Charles

I was a patient at Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville on July 14, 2005 suffering from congestive heart failure and had a pacemaker/defibrillator that had gone off 6 times in one day, delivering knockout shocks and burning down to my toes. After being stabilized, I was placed in a regular room for observation. I had already been undergoing pre-transplant evaluation for a possible heart transplant and had only two days before been officially placed on the transplant list. I became aware that three of my nurses had received their training and degrees from Auburn and we had exchanged “war eagle” several times during this and prior hospitalizations. On this particular date while eating lunch, a transplant surgeon came into my room and told me to stop eating, that he thought he had me a heart and that it looked good, but it would be about 30 minutes before he would know for sure. Shortly, thereafter these three Auburn-trained nurses came into my room and notified me that it was a go and then began to sing the Auburn fight song, ” War Eagle fly down the field, always to conquer, never to yield. War Eagle fearless and true, fight on you orange and blue . . . ” It was a truly inspiring moment for me, and one that I will never forget. It led me into a successful heart transplant surgery, recovery, and rehabilitation that has been nothing less than phenomenal
Carl

I met my husband when we were both undergrads at Auburn and the fall after we started dating we took a semester off and went to Nepal. We were hiking towards the Tengboche monastery in a remote region of the Himalayans, after an hour plane ride in what my husband calls a “crop-duster” that you might see flying over the Plains. After a long hike straight up the mountains, we stopped at a small guesthouse to stay the night. We had no electricity, no running water, a wooden bed, and a menu consisting mainly of rice and “greens”. The weather was cold and while sitting in the common area by the fire before starting the next day’s hike, I was wearing my orange and blue Auburn fleece and heard those two words: “War Eagle.” I realized the woman across the fire had noticed the AU logo on my fleece. Being the only other English speaking person there, we started talking, and it turned out she was from Alabama and was an Auburn fan. So here we sat, literally on the other side of the world, a 2-day plane ride from Birmingham, AL, followed by another nerve-wrecking flight in a tiny plane plus a day’s hike straight up the side of a mountain, talking about the Auburn football season we were missing on our trip. Since they haven’t heard about Auburn or football in Kathmandu, we had to ask if she knew how Auburn was doing that season.
Stephanie & Tommy

I am a ‘65 graduate and my wife is a ‘66. My brother, daughter and son-in-law are all Auburn folks. We call ourselves an Auburn family. This of course extends to the world Auburn family. My moment was on a trip to Peru to visit family living and working there. My wife, Fran and I decided to go off on our own to visit the town of Cusco in the high Andes mountains, above 11,000 feet in elevation, and the discovered Inca lost city of Machu Picchu, also in the high Andes. Keep in mind that we are above ten thousand feet, in the high Andes Mountains of a very remote area of the country of Peru, visiting remains of the lost Incan empire. At that elevation it was cool and damp, and I had on a light tan-colored windbreaker with a “kind of large” AU. As my wife and I were walking through the gateway to the lost city of Machu Picchu, a group was walking out and to my surprise a gentleman in the group called out a loud “War Eagle”! Of course that made the climb and tour of the lost city that much more enjoyable to know that we could be in that remote of an area of the world and find the brotherhood of Auburn there.
War Eagle!!
Mick

In 1998, my wife (1996 BS in Forestry) and I (1993 BS in Chemical Engineering) were in Germany to visit her parents. We took a trip to Munich where Oktoberfest was going on. Now Oktoberfest is like a giant state fair on steroids. There must have been 250,000 people on the site. My wife was wearing a hat with a big AU on it, and someone in the crowd shouted “War Eagle”. We never saw who it was, but we sent them a loud “War Eagle” back.
War Eagle!!!
Eddie

In June of 2005 I was on the 1st level of the Eiffel Tower waiting for my husband (another Auburn Alum) and my daughters to come down from the upper levels. I was with my in-laws, who are from Spain and don’t speak English. I was wearing an Auburn cap. A man walked up and said “War Eagle!” We proceeded with a 10-minute conversation of the great football season, where are you from, and what a small world! After he left, my in-laws were wondering if I knew the man and I explained that no, I didn’t know him, but those words “War Eagle” create a bond… be it 10 minutes or a lifetime… for all Auburn fans!
Joanna

I am currently on active duty in the U.S. Navy and returned just the past week from a six-month deployment in the Middle East. Throughout the deployment, I endured many changes and new experiences, especially for a guy who grew up in Jasper, AL. The particular moment that I am writing to you about happened to me four months into the deployment, a point where I was really missing home, but at the same time gearing up for my return and the upcoming football season that began immediately before my return. Being halfway around the world, and as far from Auburn as I could be I had to go out and show my true colors of orange and blue as best I could. Therefore, I wore my All Auburn All Orange T-shirt from last season, while in port in the Island country of Bahrain. On the day that I wore my AU T-shirt, I took a shopping trip to the local mall. Walking trough the mall browsing at all the stores, engulfed by Arabic People in traditional Arabic clothing I stood out like a sore thumb… but I didn’t care, and it turned out to be a very good thing. While walking past a store and glancing into the shop window I heard “War Eagle!” I looked up and saw a middle-aged American man wearing a suit simply smiling at me. I responded with my own “War Eagle!” In such a random environment and on the other side of the world, it was not what either of us expected to hear, but based on the smile on his face, I think it meant as much to him as it did to me to hear the words we all associate with the place we love, Auburn…HOME!
Caleb

My favorite “Auburn Moment” actually happened when I was a student studying abroad with the School of Architecture. At the time, the program was 3 months long, and we traveled all over Western and Eastern Europe studying art and architecture. While in Venice, Italy I got up early one morning and threw on my Auburn t-shirt and went to an Internet cafe to check my e-mail. I entered the Internet cafe, which was flooded with mostly Italians, and sat by the front window. While intently surfing the computer, I heard the cry….”War Eagle!!!” I immediately looked up and saw two older alumni peering their head into the Internet cafe smiling. I responded with a ‘War Eagle’ and got up from my computer and went over and introduced myself to them. The couple, probably in their late 60’s, was from Virginia and traveling Europe with some friends from back home. Apparently, my orange Auburn shirt caught the eye of the husband as they were passing by the Internet cafe window. We stood there and chatted about traveling and the Auburn family all over the world. Unfortunately, I cannot remember the couple’s name. To this day I still get chills when I think about the unique Auburn family and how you can be thousands of miles away in another country and hear those sweet and soothing words….”War Eagle!!!”
That experience had such a huge impact on me that from that day on I have made it a point to go out of my way and shout “War Eagle” when I see another person with Auburn paraphernalia…let others question our greeting to one another, but in the end that is what makes it UNIQUELY AUBURN!!!
Kent

I was in Narita airport in Tokyo, Japan when I saw an Auburn baseball cap floating in the crowd. I lost it a couple of times but eventually tracked it down outside on the observation platform. I walked up behind the kid wearing it and said “War Eagle.” The rest of the people he was with looked at me like I was crazy, but he turned around and said it right back. He said he was an international student, and I’m pretty sure he was just coming back from Camp War Eagle. I’d like to think that I was his first War Eagle, and I’m pretty sure it was one of his farthest from Auburn too.
It’s great that we have something like this to unify everyone who is associated with Auburn. It is truly unique.
William

I have been living in Virginia Beach since graduating in ’87. I have had the “AU” plates on my vehicle since Virginia added us to their list of available college vanity plates several years ago. I was driving with my wife Susan (’87 Virginia Tech) and our 8-month-old son one Sunday afternoon on our way to Home Depot. As I pulled up to the stoplight I thought the car in front of me turning right on red had pulled away. As I looked to the left and eased forward I heard a nice thump as I ran into the back of a Chevy Blazer. My wife gave me a very disgusted look as if to say, “I’m not surprised at all with the way you drive.” I backed up a few feet, got out and walked toward the front of my vehicle while at the same time the woman I hit was walking to the back of her car. Now in Virginia we are required to have front license plates as well as rear. As I approached and started examining the damage the women looked at my tag and then at me and gave me a hearty “War Eagle” as well as a “high five”. She said that her car was fine. I checked with her again to make certain and then we exchanged pleasantries quickly so we could move our cars that were blocking the street. When I got back in my car my wife had the strangest look on her face and asked, “what was that?” From her vantage point I had just rear-ended a women who gets out of her car and gives me a “high five” and I’m back in my car in less than a minute. If that had been a UA graduate I’d still be waiting on my court date. It is great to be an Auburn Tiger even in Virginia!
- Vincent