Kristin Sundvall created a drill team at her high school that competed in all three disciplines of drill competition - color guard, exhibition, and regulation drill. As her senior project, she worked with an Army veteran to train cadets and prepare routines. While the team showed promise, they were unable to compete due to issues collecting dues. Sundvall learned leadership, communication, and time management skills from the experience. She remains committed to a military career path after high school.

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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?