When Lititz gathers for Veterans Day next week, one of the people quietly helping run things at VFW Post 1463 will be Karl Spidel. He’s the post’s quartermaster, a longtime volunteer, a retired Lititz police officer and a two-time Purple Heart recipient. This past spring, he was also the veteran chosen to represent all of Pennsylvania on a national honor trip.
A trip for Purple Heart recipients
The Purple Heart Patriot Project, run by the National Purple Heart Honor Mission, takes one Purple Heart recipient from each state on a five-day trip of tours and ceremonies. Spidel, now 58, went from April 27 to May 1, 2026, after being picked from what organizers described as hundreds of nominees. The itinerary included West Point, the National Purple Heart Hall of Honor in New Windsor, N.Y., the 9/11 memorial in Manhattan and George Washington’s Headquarters.
The Honor Mission was founded in 1997. Its 2023 trip cost about $241,000. Pennsylvania’s representative that year was Vanessa Schieber.
The stops weren’t random. The Purple Heart traces back to the Badge of Military Merit that George Washington created in 1782 while headquartered at Newburgh, N.Y., just up the road from the Hall of Honor. Today it goes to service members wounded or killed by enemy action, and it’s the oldest U.S. military decoration still awarded.
Spidel didn’t nominate himself. Vanessa Sylte, who manages the canteen at Post 1463, nominated him. “The Purple Heart is such a distinguished award, but it’s one you do not want to get,” Sylte told LNP | LancasterOnline in May.
From Tampa to Lititz
Spidel grew up in Tampa, Florida. He served in the Navy from 1986 to 1990 and later in the Army as an infantryman. After his first stint in uniform he moved to Chambersburg, became a police officer in 1994, and joined the Lititz Borough Police Department in 1995.
He might have spent the rest of his career here without leaving again. Then came Sept. 11, 2001. Spidel went back into uniform with the 324th Military Police Battalion, which was assigned to Site R, the underground command center near the Maryland line known formally as the Raven Rock Mountain Complex.
From there he deployed to Iraq with the 4th Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team. On July 9, 2003, he was wounded by a grenade. About two months later he was hit again, this time by an improvised explosive device. Each wound earned a Purple Heart.
He came home, went back to the Lititz police and stayed until he retired in 2018. He is married to Tracy.
The work at the post
At Post 1463, Spidel is the person who keeps track of the money and does a lot of the heavy lifting. As quartermaster he handles the post’s finances, and he’s spent years volunteering at events, fundraisers and ceremonies. His most visible project was raising $17,000 for a Purple Heart memorial.
That kind of work doesn’t usually come with recognition. The nomination put it in front of a national committee, and out of hundreds of names, his was the one picked for Pennsylvania.
Veterans Day in Lititz
Veterans Day falls on Wednesday, Nov. 11. Residents looking for local observances can check with VFW Post 1463, which sits at the center of a lot of veterans’ activity in town.
For Spidel, the spring trip brought something close to a full circle: a kid from Tampa who served in two branches, policed a small Pennsylvania borough for more than two decades and was wounded twice in Iraq, standing at West Point and ground zero as Pennsylvania’s chosen Purple Heart recipient. Then he came home and went back to work at the post.