Kyle Spiegel
My name is Kyle Spiegel and during the summer of 2007 I spent 16 days at Fort Ticonderoga, NY. This was my second time as a Landmark volunteer. In 2006, I worked at the Ark animal shelter in Maine.

At Fort Ticonderoga, my group aided in the construction of a trail, cleaned an area around the fort and assisted with a French and Indian War encampment reenactment. Our group worked hard and earned the gratitude of the Ticonderoga community. Although the work was extremely challenging and the weather was often hot, I had a lot of fun. In order to construct the trail, we sawed down trees and large brush and cleared smaller brush away. We were all tired at the end of the day. However, at the end of the program, we could see the impact we had on the Fort and the gratitude of those we aided was very gratifying.

The best part of my experience was the group I worked with. The group was small - only ten of us, including me. This allowed us to work very closely together and share our experiences together. We all became good friends and contrary to what I expected, there were almost no awkward moments when we got to know each other early on. We worked well together and had fun during our day off when we went to the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream factory and went shopping in a nearby city.

The reenactment was an amazing experience. People camped and lived like 18th century soldiers. Some of the re-enactors set up shops and my group was able to purchase items that were accurate reconstructions of items that were 300 years old. We watched demonstrations of military tactics from the time and even got the opportunity to load and fire an 18th century musket. These experiences managed to bring the history of the time period alive for us.

We quickly saw that the Ticonderoga community was grateful for what we were doing. The knowledge that we were making a difference for an important historical site made it all worthwhile. The Landmark experience will always be important to me as it taught me the value of service and functioning as part of a team. The teamwork skills and military history I learned this past summer reinforced my interest in serving in the armed forces and I have applied for both an ROTC scholarship and admission to the Service Academies.

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