Honoring Advisors Who Serve(d): Fourth of July, 2024

Gary J. Curry

Title/company: Financial Advisor/Raymond James & Associates

Branch: U.S. Marine Corps

Rank held at beginning of service and at end: Recruit/Lance Corporal

Service dates: 2001-2005

Work you did: Communications, Field Radio Officer

Brief story that stands out from your service time: My introduction to “thrashing” happened to me on Day 2 of basic training … not as a spectator but as the subject of the thrashing! Yes, I was the very first person in my squad to be thrashed. To add some context: In the military we use the term thrashing as a form of verbal and/or physical correction. The physical form of thrashing usually ends in a pool of sweat! After being up a day and a half straight getting processed in basic training, we got our barracks and bunks squared away, meaning everything is tidy and neatly put together in our footlockers. The footlockers were neatly placed by our bunks with all of our gear in them. To this point, other than lack of sleep, things are going fairly calm. We were outside of the barracks getting briefed by our senior drill instructor and as we entered the barracks one of the other drill instructors had gone through the barracks like a hurricane throwing the footlockers across the room, and flipping bunks! As we entered, our faces dropped when saw the disaster, ALL of the drill instructors starting yelling and telling us we have two minutes to get everything back in order! WHOA!! In panic mode, all of us are running around tripping over each other trying to gather our things and put them back in place. It was insane! When our two minutes were up, we all had to line up at our bunks and footlockers. With all the haste, chaos and confusion, we managed to get everything pretty much back in place. Well, almost. The drill instructor held up a single canteen, and says to the squad, Who’s canteen is this? My heart dropped because it was mine. As I hesitantly confessed that it was mine, the drill instructor begin to thrash me, rapidly yelling and repeating to me to do pushups, sit-ups, jumping jacks, run in place over and over again! He proceeded to do this for what felt like an eternity. Needless to say, by the time it was over I was in a pool of sweat and the rest of the squad was terrified. At that moment, Marine Corps bootcamp begin!