When Crystal Alvarez graduated in spring 2023, she made history becoming one of the first female Army ROTC cadets from Fresno State to be commissioned into the Infantry Branch of the U.S. Army at the rank of second lieutenant.

Alvarez was one of two female cadets at Fresno State to earn this distinction in 2023 – after the Department of Defense lifted all gender-based restrictions on military service in January 2015. The Infantry is the only branch within the U.S. Army designed specifically to engage in direct ground combat.

“Less than 2% of women serve in the Infantry, which has always been a male dominated area,” Alvarez said. “It takes a lot of physical and mental strength to be in this role, so I am grateful for the opportunity. I think it’s really cool to be part of this and to be able to do something that other women weren’t able to do in the past.”

In addition to being commissioned, Alvarez also earned her bachelor’s degree in forensic behavioral sciences, and through the four-year ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps) program, earned a minor in military science and leadership.

Alvarez began her basic officer leader course training at Fort Moore in Columbus, Georgia in February with the goal of pursuing the Infantry Branch for four years before earning rank as a captain and going into the Signal Corps, where she hopes to transition into a career working with the FBI.

She said the career pipeline from military to government is what attracted her, and she found the education and experiences she received at Fresno State to be a catalyst for helping her achieve this next step.

Having grown up in Windsor, California, Alvarez had no prior knowledge of the ROTC program, but she knew she wanted to pursue higher education and study forensic behavioral sciences. In her junior year of high school, she and her mother came across a recruiter who told them about the ROTC program, which would provide generous scholarships to use towards her education.

This intrigued Alvarez, who did additional research and decided to enroll at Fresno State for its high-ranking criminology program and its ROTC program.

“I’m really glad that I joined the ROTC,” Alvarez said. “Once I got in, I realized there were so many opportunities for me to enhance my leadership skills through training exercises and volunteering. The more I learned, the more I really started to enjoy it.”

Through the Fresno State Army ROTC , students are prepared for careers in the U.S. Army through a combination of classroom instruction, unique training activities and high-intensity laboratories throughout their four years in the program. At the completion of the program, students are commissioned as second lieutenants into the U.S. Army after having also earned a bachelor’s degree in their field of choice, in addition to a minor in military science and leadership.

Alvarez said her ROTC journey was rough at first considering she had no previous military experience, but it only pushed her to keep going.

“My first day in the ROTC, I was really confused because I didn’t know what a platoon or squad was. I remember the cadre told us to ‘get in your platoons,’ and I ran over not knowing what that even meant. When they called us to attention, I didn’t know what that meant either, so I peeked to the side of me and just copied whatever the person next to me did,” Alvarez said with a laugh.

Little did Alvarez know that would be the start of an incredible journey. From early morning drills before dawn to multiple-day field training exercises at army bases across California to flying over town in a chinook combat helicopter, each day was a new and exciting adventure that expanded her leadership skills and widened her circle of friends.

Alvarez’s confidence – and strength – grew year by year. She recalls a turning point in her ROTC career was when she participated in the Ranger Challenge, which is considered the premiere sport of the Army ROTC. Teams of cadets are formed from each ROTC program across the nation and compete against each other in soldier skills that test physical endurance and mental agility. Although physically active and a natural athlete, Alvarez had her work cut out for her.

“For the Ranger challenges, we would do ruck marches to try to increase our speed, with each ruck being more than half my weight,” Alvarez said. “So I had to learn to keep up with everyone when, proportionally, I was carrying a lot more weight than they were. But by the end of that semester, I was running ahead of everybody. The experience taught me that just because you start out weaker or smaller, it doesn’t mean you can’t catch up.”

Alvarez said the experience also made her realize a career in Infantry was possible. “This is a chance for me to prove that women are capable of doing the same things as men and, more so, that we’re strong enough to do so,” Alvarez said.

Alvarez credits the faculty in the Army ROTC, also known as cadre, for their support and guidance throughout the rigorous program. There are 65 students enrolled in the Army ROTC and 46 students enrolled in the Air Force ROTC at Fresno State, with many who intend to pursue careers in the military after graduating from Fresno State. 

“The Army ROTC Program provides students with the opportunity to demonstrate to themselves how capable they can be by leveraging their strengths and compensating for their weaknesses to accomplish the mission,” said Lt. Col. Ann Janice Vogan, chair of the Department of Military Science and Leadership at Fresno State. “We provide a foundation for our cadets to build their leadership skills, such as second lieutenant Alvarez. She will lead some of the nation’s best and brightest into the future, and I am so proud of the job she has done, but even more so of the leader she will continue to grow into.”

Both the Army ROTC and Air Force ROTC programs merged into the College of Health and Human Services at Fresno State in fall 2023, after previously being housed within the Craig School of Business.