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Kristin Sundvall

Mrs. Lester

Advanced Composition

12 March 2012

Senior Project Speech

Imagine having a career where you had to look like and follow the same agenda as your

coworkers. Imagine having a boss so strict you could go to prison for disobeying his orders.

Finally, imagine having the weight of every American citizen’s life on your shoulders and not

being able to show any kind of emotion for fear of losing your rigid appearance and possibly

your job. I’ve always known that I wanted to be in the military, but I found my real passion when

I started JROTC. I joined the drill team my sophomore year. After weeks of repetitive and strict

practice, it was finally time for competitions to start for the season. We won our first competition

and many others after that. We did not make it to the state level that year, but we did the

following year for the first time. I’ve worked my way up in JROTC, and I was able to take over

as drill team captain this year. Our drill team has only ever competed in two out of the three drill

disciplines-color guard and exhibition-and it has been my goal since tenth grade to create a team

that competes in all three. I used my senior project as an opportunity to add the third discipline.

For my senior project, I decided to create a more well-rounded drill team and train the cadets to

compete in regulation drill.

Coming from a military family, I have always respected veterans, and when I heard about

the shocking rate of veteran suicide, I wanted to know why. Through my research, I found that

1600 veterans take their own lives every year. I also found that one of the main reasons a veteran

will commit suicide is mental disorders created by the stringent structure of the military. Soldiers

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have very difficult jobs, especially infantry, and they are expected to carry out their missions

without regret. Military culture does not allow them to show any emotion; they have to keep

their rigid appearance. I used my product to demonstrate how strict life in the military is. Just

like soldiers go through difficult training and are expected to show no emotion, the cadets on the

drill team are trained very strictly and must keep the same rigid appearance in competition that a

soldier would keep in combat. Now that you have an understanding of my senior project and

research paper topic, I would like to take you through the steps I followed to create my product.

First, I had to find a facilitator. I knew I definitely wanted a military veteran as my

facilitator. I wanted someone who knew a lot about drill and ceremony and had mastered every

movement and command. SFC Zeidler, the Army Instructor here at Creekview, was the first

person who came to mind. SFC Zeidler retired from a twenty year service in the Army. He was

an Army Ranger and a platoon sergeant. When he wasn’t fighting in Afghanistan, he was here in

Georgia training future Rangers. As a platoon sergeant, SFC Zeidler was required to know how

to command and execute drill and ceremony movements. I knew he would be a great teacher

since he is able to train Army soldiers and shape them into Rangers. Once I found my facilitator,

it was time to get started on the project itself. The first step in creating my product was holding

an interest meeting for the drill team. The meeting was held on 18 October after school. At the

meeting, I discussed the drill team with the cadets who were present. After the meeting, SFC

Zeidler and I made a list of the cadets interested in participating. From my past experience with

the drill team, I was able to decide who would be primaries on the team and who would be

alternates. The next step was deciding the practice schedule. I encountered my first problem

here. With almost twenty cadets showing interest in drill, there was no way for me to ensure that

everyone would be able to make it to the scheduled practices. No matter what time I suggested

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practices be held, there were always a few cadets who couldn’t fit it into their schedules. As a

solution, I made a practice schedule that worked for most of the cadets. We practiced Monday,

Tuesday, and Thursday from 6:45 AM to 8:15 AM. Once practice started, the next step was to

train new cadets. Again, I ran into some problems. I had several new cadets on the team who

knew very little about drill and ceremony. As a solution, for the first few weeks of practice, I let

the veteran drill team members get started on their color guard and exhibition routines, while

SFC Zeidler and I took aside the new cadets and taught them how to execute drill movements,

starting with basic stationary movements and working up to advanced mobile maneuvers. Once

the new cadets had a firm grip on drill movements, I brought the whole team together and started

working on the regulation squad routine. As the commander of the squad, I had to memorize

over 70 commands in sequence, which was challenging, but I did memorize it, and the routine

looked better and better with each practice. As the season progressed, we started getting

invitations to competitions. SFC Zeidler and I had to decline the first invitation due to a personal

injury, but accepted several later invitations. It looked like we were going to have a great season

until we encountered the biggest problem of all: paying the entrance fees for competitions. I had

gotten so caught up in practice and making sure all the routines were perfect, that I did not

realize I was the only cadet who had paid dues for the season. We did not have enough time to

collect everyone’s dues, and as a result, we could not pay the entrance fees, and the drill team

was disbanded in February for the season. It was a huge letdown, but all the time spent during

practice was worth it because I set the precedent for next year’s drill team captain, and got to

teach several new cadets about drill and ceremony. Now that you know step by step how I

completed my senior project, I would like to tell you what I’ve learned in the past six months.

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Although this project was difficult at times, I have grown as a person because of it. My

work habits have developed a lot. I have learned to work well with other people and be patient

with those who need a little extra help learning something. I have also learned better teaching

methods and leadership skills. In addition, I have learned that I am not a good decision maker. It

was very difficult for me to choose who would be the primaries on the team and who would be

alternates. My communication skills have also improved. I do not see each team member every

day, so I had to come up with a way to communicate with everyone about changes to practice

times and information about competitions. I made a group on Facebook where the team members

could find any information about the team. I also made a list on my phone of all the team

members’ numbers so I could text them any new information. This project has cemented my

career choice. I know for sure that I am going to be in the military. Despite what I know about

the strict discipline of the military and how it can lead to mental disorders, I enjoy the uniformity

because it teaches me self-discipline and organization. After high school, I would like to go to

the University of Georgia and study computer sciences or software engineering. I also want to do

ROTC in college and earn my commission as an Army officer by 2016. Hopefully I will be able

to get a piloting license in the Army and use it to become a commercial pilot in the civilian world

when I am ready to retire from the military. Thank you for being here. Are there any questions?