GoArmy.com > For Parents > 2LT Travis Street: Finding A Mentor

FINDING A MENTOR: Travis forms a special bond with Master Sgt. (MSG) Martin Celestine who helps him with his physical fitness training.

Photo of MSG Celestine instructing Cadets

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rmy ROTC stresses academics and physical fitness; every Cadet must participate in physical training. It helps keep them both mentally sharp and physically fit.

When Travis entered his sophomore year, he was recovering from a broken leg. Travis wanted to improve his strength and sought the help of his ROTC instructor, MSG Celestine. When MSG Celestine saw how hard Travis was working, he knew he had someone special. MSG Celestine developed a weight-lifting program and meal plan for Travis, designed to work on his core, upper body strength and speed the recovery of his leg strength. As Travis grew stronger, so did his professional relationship with MSG Celestine. MSG Celestine continued to work with Travis and mentor him, and the two remained close throughout college.

For Travis, MSG Celestine served as his mentor, but there are also mentor programs within battalions, where junior and senior Cadets help their underclassmen with anything from schoolwork to physical fitness or with college life in general. Having a mentor is an important part of Army ROTC and a huge advantage for Cadets.

Through all of his hard work, Travis became an embodiment of the Army Values and earned respect from MSG Celestine and his fellow Cadets. ROTC made Travis not only physically stronger but also mentally tougher. The experience gave Travis the confidence to lead and the tools necessary to become an Officer in the U.S. Army.

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Continue Travis' story >

Photo of 2LT Street with MSG Celestine

Travis: The physical fitness was the toughest part of ROTC training for me. I was doing well academically but my freshman year I broke my leg, so I was very out of shape and weak when I came into my sophomore year. When I was about to commission, I found out that I was actually kind of on the chopping block in ROTC. And Sergeant Celestine without me knowing stood up for me and said this guy's only weak at fitness, some of your best leaders are not the fittest guys.

MSG Celestine: My name is Martin Celestine and I'm a Master Sergeant with the United States Army. Definitely, his weakness was physical fitness. Travis was naturally a decent runner; the upper body and the core strength was lacking, so we developed a weight-training program for him and actually put him on a meal plan.

Travis: I actually do like running. It takes work to do, it's endurance and you can see the effects when you run, you feel like you started the day correctly.

MSG Celestine: A lot of times, you want to help a person, but if they're not willing to help themselves then it doesn't work. And he showed me that he wanted it more than I wanted it for him. Then that in turn pushed me to help him even more. When you have a guy that trained every day out of the week on his time, you know you got somebody special.

Travis: You really want to go above that standard they have set for you and you can.

MSG Celestine: You talk about leadership. You saw today when he walked in the class, the Cadets that knew him prior. When he starts talking, they all listen. In the ROTC program, we definitely strive academics first, before anything else, because we do realize, if you can't stay in school, you can't be a Cadet. We hold the Cadets to a standard at a minimum to maintain a 2.5 GPA. We try to instill what a lot of people don't get at home, helping them make decisions that are just not going to impact their lives but other people's lives. And, certainly, he's living the Army values here face to face with the instructors; we try to instill that in him so that he can take that to his job down the street. He's not actually a soldier yet. We also have a mentorship program that we utilize; we use MS4, which is your upper classman, to mentor a freshman. You know, we know a lot of teachers who don't have the time for it, but in ROTC we do.