When Michelle Castro first stepped into military training, she already knew the odds were stacked against her. She was the youngest. One of the shortest. And according to some of the people around her, not “strong enough.”
“People there let it be known that they did not think I was strong enough,” Castro said. “I mean, I get it. I was one of the shortest and I was the youngest one there. It made me mad and upset hearing the comments and the hate, but it only motivated me more to prove them wrong.”
She didn’t just prove them wrong—she crushed expectations. When it came time to take the army combat fitness test, she put in the work and scored 505 out of 600.
“I might’ve rubbed it in their face, haha,” she admits. But the moment wasn’t just about payback, it was about respect. “After that, they left me alone. I got two apologies from them. It was all good. Everyone just wanted to graduate and get out of there.” (just put quotation marks at the end of it)
But getting to that point wasn’t easy. Military training is designed to push people to their limits, and Castro knew giving up was the easy way out.
“The biggest challenge is not giving up,” she says. “Because it’s so easy to give up, to tap out and just quit.”
Except quitting was never an option. She had a bigger reason to keep going, her family.
“The main reason I joined was to help with my parents’ immigration status,” Castro said. “They gave up so much for me in life, I wanted to give them something in return.”
Every early morning, every grueling challenge, every moment of doubt—she pushed through, fueled by the thought of giving back to the people who had sacrificed so much for her.
And along the way, she found her people.
“I was lucky enough to make many amazing supportive friends,” Castro says. “It definitely helps time go by faster and everything seem just a little bit easier with the right friends.”
From the underdog to the one standing strong at the finish line, Michelle Castro proved that strength isn’t just about size—it’s about heart, resilience and the refusal to back down.
