ROTC Stinger Battalion's Gurry Named Distinguished Honor Graduate from Air Assault School

Posted June 8, 2015

Fifteen cadets from the Stinger Battalion, Georgia Tech's appropriately named Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corp (ROTC) unit housed within the Ivan Allen College, traveled to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, this May to take part in the U.S. Army’s Air Assault School. The10-day course is designed to prepare soldiers for missions that call for the use of multipurpose transportation and assault helicopters.

Thirteen cadets successfully completed the rigorous course on May 18, graduating alongside 73 of their peers, with two additional cadets from the Stinger Battalion graduating a few days later. In addition to the impressive 100% graduation rate achieved by our cadets, Georgia Tech’s own Cadet Colin Gurry was named the Distinguished Honor Graduate from the course, a significant achievement given that the class consisted of regular army officers, noncommissioned officers, and soldiers.

The Distinguished Honor Graduate is awarded to the Air Assault School student with the highest test average over a series of testable events in two phases. Cadet Gurry, an aerospace engineering major from Canton, Connecticut, said he was honored to receive such recognition alongside his peers.

“If I had not won the award, there were several other Georgia Tech cadets with extremely high averages that would have been in the running,” said Gurry. “I'm proud of how we represented our program during the 10 days and, hopefully, we will be able to take these new skills back to Georgia Tech ROTC and our future units.”

Gurry noted that the most challenging part of the course was absorbing a great deal of information in very little time. During the first two phases, students were briefed with necessary information over a two-day period and then tested on the third. The Distinguished Honor Graduate title is derived from the scores on these two tests, which cover a broad swath of topics from basic air assault and pathfinder operations and aeromedevac procedures to rigging and inspecting sling loads for transporting equipment via aircraft.

“The great thing about the 13 of us cadets attending together is that we were able to look out for each other. There was an abundance of study partners,” said Gurry. “Our Army ROTC program has a great reputation and I have been impressed with the teaching and mentoring abilities of our cadre.”

Though all of the Stinger Battalion cadets who attended Air Assault School graduated from the program, only 86 of the original 148 overall personnel did the same. Gurry attributes this high attrition rate to the numerous physical and mental testable events, noting that students could be dropped simply for not following directions or lacking attention to detail. “You have to bring your focus and motivation every day.”

“Personally, graduating from this program has given me a relevant and marketable skill in my desired career field,” said Gurry, who aspires to be an aviation officer after graduating from Tech. “I think the cadets who went through this course have come out with better attention to detail, discipline, and leadership potential.”