Madison Marsh

Well, I wouldn't be able to do it without the Air Force. They are constantly working to make sure that I'm in regs, within the guidelines, that I'm following everything, staying legal. They're the ones, they're like hawk's eyes. Now I've gotten really good at flagging things before they even happened because they were recognizing potential problems 10 steps ahead of everybody else.

And I think that has really helped me stay in both of those positions. But even more so than that, I think downtime is the biggest thing. People don't recognize how draining any sort of job can be. And I think giving your people back time to recharge and be with their families is an incredible gift to get people filled up again, to be ready to do the job. And the Air Force saw that.

I mean, I think my commanders truly recognize that this year. So any time that they could to figure out where they could be able to give me some time off or give time back because I had been working for so many extra days. I had given weekends up. They wanted to make sure that I was able to take the time to be with my loved ones, to recharge at home. And that's how you make both the jobs work.

And I think that's a big lesson I'm going to be taking into when I go back full time into a normal Air Force job after Miss America is over to make sure that my people come first every time.

people are the most incredible resource that the air force has that the military has you can't buy enough people and the time and the mission and the passion they are willing to give back so you have to give to them to make sure that they're able to do that job well you have to make sure that if you're calling the men to work extra hours and give up their time that as a leader you are going to be there doing it with them

And if you are going to be asking them to give a lot of that time up, find ways that you can give things back to them to keep them recentered on the mission, able to continue filling up their cup and giving back in the best way that they can. Show up for your people and they will show up to do their job.

I mean, it was pretty scary, to be totally honest. I try to keep a lot of my personal life still private. And when people get super excited about everything in Miss America or happening in the Air Force, the media really wants to draw out all of these things. And I remember the first week I had

reporters finding out where i lived in my hometown back in arkansas and they were trying to come into our house and figure out where i went to school so they could go into the school and find yearbook photos and go through every little small detail of my life and i did not like that so i made sure to set some lines up with my family and also with the press.

I knew that my fiance didn't want to be in a lot of the photos that were being handed out to the press, so making sure we were keeping that private. Or I didn't want people going through all of my

childhood and high school photos so please don't give them all the addresses so they can go find things about me and then especially when it comes to negative press and negative media because that has happened a lot this year I have told my family I don't want to see it and I don't want to hear about it because I can't change people's public opinion and what they're saying about me.

I can only do what I do, show up, do it well and work hard. And sometimes that's not going to be enough for people. And I had a hard line with them that if they see something, please do not tell me because it's not going to change what they've said or what they've done. And I need to stay re-centered and focused on the job and the mission that's currently at hand and in front of me.

you shouldn't have a private life everything should be public what do you say about that now that you've lived it i've gotten a very small taste of everything this year and i think that the grass is always greener i think that people think that every they see everything through rose-colored glasses and say oh well they can't complain about x y and z because they got to have that position or they got to be famous or they got x amount of followers

And none of that matters because at the end of the day, this is coming off in a month from now and I'm going to go right back to just being Madison Marsh. Not any of the titles or the accolades, nothing. I'll just, as I have always been, just me. And understanding that even though people might get to have that fame or the fortune

that people still go through individual struggles and everyone has a right to privacy, no matter how much they put out in the public world. Everyone has a right to just be a human and enjoy time with their family and get to just be them and not have to have the burden of their job. Because luckily enough for majority of the world, when you take off

from work every day you get to go back to being just you but for them maybe it seems like they have to do it 24 7 they always have to be on they always have to be thinking about who's watching who's taking photos and so giving those people that time and that ability to just be themselves because we'll never be able to understand what that's like for them but we can be a little bit more gracious and forgiving to people to make sure that everyone gets to have some sort of a fair experience

and work with recruiting this year. Obviously we always talk about, we want more people, but what I want, not necessarily quantity, but I want quality candidates. I want people that are genuinely passionate about serving the United States and putting the uniform on.

Because I never know, maybe the person that I'm talking to is going to end up getting deployed with my fiance or one of my best friends in the Air Force and their ability to work hard, follow orders and be courageous and be a leader to others. That could potentially be the difference of life or death for some of my friends that are going to serve alongside them. So I want good quality candidates.

I want people that want the challenge, that are willing to work hard, that are willing to have sucky things happen to them in their service and know how to get through it and band together with the people beside them. That's who I'm looking for. I want leaders of character joining the military.

I would say you're probably going to find at least one person, if not multiple, in your life who maybe don't believe in you, have maybe instilled doubt. But really, at the end of the day, that opinion doesn't matter. What other people want you to do with your life doesn't matter. I know I've gotten a lot of pushback this year for saying I'm not going to pilot training anymore.

But at the end of the day, at the end of my life, The only person whose life I'm going to live is mine. And the only life that you are going to live is yours. So stop living for other people. Stop living for their praise, for the accolades, and just find something that you actually care about, that you're passionate about.