unbroken soldier

Justice Castaneda was 20 years old when he went to a military recruiting office. At the time, he had been involved in drugs and seen many of his close friends go off to prison.“I knew I had to get out,” he said. “I was making bad decisions, hanging out with a bad group. I was sitting inside of my friend’s car who was driving without a license when I saw the Military Recruiting Office — I knew that was where my future was headed.”

Castaneda has come a long way since then. Now a senior at Thurgood Marshall College, the 29-year-old serves as the president of the university’s Student Veteran Organization (SVO).

Castaneda grew up in a working class neighborhood in Madison, Wis. and got into the Marines “by the skin of his teeth,” he said. Castaneda spent the first year in sobriety, working as an information analyst, but quickly rose up the ranks to Sergeant in two years, and was promoted to Staff Sergeant three years later.

In 2004, Castaneda was deployed to Iraq, where he worked as a security team leader in the village of Fallujah. Now the honor student organizes events for his fellow vets on campus and also volunteers as a tutor and mentor to underprivileged youths at a local high school.

“As veterans, we’re dedicated students,” he said. “We’re older, we know what we want and we want to give back. We learned a lot from serving in the military. Now it’s our time to engage with the campus community and our fellow students.”

To read more about Justice, go here.