{"id":295876,"date":"2024-10-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-08T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=295876"},"modified":"2024-10-08T13:11:10","modified_gmt":"2024-10-08T13:11:10","slug":"from-university-mascot-to-u-s-army-officer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=295876","title":{"rendered":"From University Mascot to U.S. Army Officer"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"editor-image single\">\n<figure class=\"photo cur-photo\">\n          <span class=\"centered-image\"><br \/>\n            <span class=\"img-container\"><br \/>\n              <a class=\"rich-text-img-link\" href=\"https:\/\/api.army.mil\/e2\/c\/images\/2024\/10\/08\/3db5bdea\/original.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>              <\/a><br \/>\n                          <\/span><br \/>\n          <\/span><figcaption>\n                        <span class=\"image-caption\"><br \/>\n              <span class=\"caption-text\"><br \/>\n                2nd Lt. Nathan Istre is an Environmental Science and Engineering Officer at Public Health Command Europe<br \/>\n                <span class=\"caption-author\"> (Photo Credit: Michelle Thum)<\/span><br \/>\n              <\/span><br \/>\n              <a href=\"https:\/\/api.army.mil\/e2\/c\/images\/2024\/10\/08\/3db5bdea\/original.jpg\" title=\"View original\" target=\"_blank\">VIEW ORIGINAL<\/a><br \/>\n            <\/span><br \/>\n          <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Landstuhl, Germany &#8211; After graduating from Louisiana State University and spending most of his time as a mascot, Public Health Command Europe Soldier decides to join the U.S. Army as an environmental science and engineering officer.<\/p>\n<p>Texas-native 2nd Lt. Nathan Istre joined the U.S. Army straight after college in 2021 as a combat medic and later commissioned as a 72 D, known as environmental science and engineering officer.<\/p>\n<p>Istre has been accustomed to the military life with both of his parents in the service.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJoining just made sense and the Army has so many opportunities,\u201d said Istre. &#8220;I enlisted at first because I didn\u2019t want an office job. I wanted to be able to work in the field and after two years I commissioned to further develop my professional career.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>At Public Health Command Europe, Istre is part of the Environmental Health Sciences Division and provides preventive medicine support to operational units across the entire footprint. EHS provides environmental engineering, entomological sciences, and health risk management expertise in garrison and deployment locations to promote, sustain, and improve the mission readiness of EUCOM, CENTCOM, and AFRICOM.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnits that need our support will reach out to us and we will provide assets to conduct preventive medicine missions in form of soil, water or air sampling for example,\u201d said Istre. \u201cI enjoy getting a taste of all the Army has to offer, in my career field we distribute individual support to anyone and get a peek into all sorts of missions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to Istre, he likes the variety that the job provides because every day is different. Recently, Istre conducted a base camp assessment in Africa. Environmental health hazards can seriously impact the mission and  safety of the service members. It is an ongoing, never-ending duty to educate and perform sanitary inspections as well as water, soil, and air surveillance to reduce disease and nonbattle injury.<\/p>\n<div class=\"editor-image single\">\n<figure class=\"photo cur-photo\">\n          <span class=\"centered-image\"><br \/>\n            <span class=\"img-container\"><br \/>\n              <a class=\"rich-text-img-link\" href=\"https:\/\/api.army.mil\/e2\/c\/images\/2024\/10\/08\/7579481b\/original.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n                <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Mike the Tiger Mascot\" src=\"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/size0-full-126.jpg\" \/><br \/>\n              <\/a><br \/>\n                          <\/span><br \/>\n          <\/span><figcaption>\n                        <span class=\"image-caption\"><br \/>\n              <span class=\"caption-text\"><br \/>\n                2nd Lt. Nathan Istre was part of the Mike the Tiger Team during his University time at LSU.<br \/>\n                <span class=\"caption-author\"> (Photo Credit: Michelle Thum)<\/span><br \/>\n              <\/span><br \/>\n              <a href=\"https:\/\/api.army.mil\/e2\/c\/images\/2024\/10\/08\/7579481b\/original.jpg\" title=\"View original\" target=\"_blank\">VIEW ORIGINAL<\/a><br \/>\n            <\/span><br \/>\n          <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Istre has always enjoyed trying out new things. He earned a \u201cbiological engineering degree at LSU which is a pretty wide-ranging degree\u201c and balanced his study time with joining the University mascot team. For four years, he wore the Mike the Tiger suit, the official LSU mascot, at football and basketball games, press conferences and charity events to represent his university.<\/p>\n<p>His time as a mascot has shaped his leadership philosophy and influenced his life.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt takes a certain amount of audacity and lack of fear to succeed,\u201d said Istre. \u201cAs a college mascot, you are the first one on the field and thousands of eyes stare at you which can be uncomfortable, but you just have to push through and know why you do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Istre applies the same mentality for his career in the Army, \u201cI will keep going for as long as it energizes me. I will stay in for as long as the Army excites me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2nd Lt. Nathan Istre is an Environmental Science and Engineering Officer at Public Health Command Europe (Photo Credit: Michelle Thum) VIEW ORIGINAL Landstuhl, Germany &#8211; After graduating from Louisiana State University and spending most of his time as a mascot, Public Health Command Europe Soldier decides to join the U.S. Army as an environmental science [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295878,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-295876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=295876"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":295881,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295876\/revisions\/295881"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/295878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=295876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=295876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=295876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}