Madison Marsh
Appearances
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
Obviously the military is not going to be for everybody. Pageants aren't going to be for everybody, but I can guarantee everyone has their little niche thing that they're interested in, a passion of theirs. And that's when you pour into that challenge. I mean, for me, I'm really passionate about my nonprofit and all the time I'm trying to figure out
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
ways that we can be better, figuring out the ways that I've messed up and how I can be a better leader the next time around, the next day, the next week, the next year. And that really applies to anything in your life. So of course, I would love for more people to join the military.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
But at the end of it there, if you're not passionate about that, there are definitely other ways to still serve our country and also find that challenge and impact.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
There are a lot of things that I think people don't understand, but it's also I don't blame anyone for that. Obviously, the community of pageants is very small. It's just like maybe a lot of people have misconceptions about the military because they're not in the military. It's kind of the same thing. I think a lot of people still have those stereotypes about pageants.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
women who compete in pageants that maybe they're very vain or that they might not be very intelligent and i think through competing in pageants i have met some incredibly passionate and intelligent young women who are impacting their communities in so many different ways than i could have ever imagined i mean if you watch
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
One night of Miss America and listen to the girls talking about their community service initiatives and the ways that they're impacting their communities. It's incredible because that's real work that's going back to hometowns all across America to help people who are in need.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
And I love that because one of the things I always spoke to my cadets about at the Air Force Academy is finding ways to serve outside of your uniform.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
I think when you're at the academy, you sometimes forget that life exists beyond the black gates and the confines of where you exist and being able to sometimes realize that you can give back to your immediate community and that doesn't have to necessarily come in the form of military service. That could be
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
showing up to take care of your family, your siblings, your loved ones, coming home for dinner and serving them in that way. Or maybe you're the person that's going to go out and volunteer every Saturday. Or maybe you're going to give up a couple days a month to go volunteer and serve your immediate community in that way. There are a lot of ways that we can interplay that in the military.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
And those are lessons that I was also taught from competing in pageants.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
Absolutely. I remember my preliminary night question for my community service initiative was to talk about how I saw artificial intelligence interplaying with early detection of pancreatic cancer research. And that's something that you have to answer right on the spot in front of a crowd. And it's going to, by the way, exist on video for the rest of your life.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
So you got to hope you don't mess it up. So that's kind of the things you have to prepare for all of the time. And then my finals night question after I'd made the top 11, they actually ended up switching up the way that we did the questions. So they weren't going to be about our community service initiatives anymore. We basically played musical chairs.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
And then whatever chair you sat down in, you would hold up the number that was sitting there. And behind you would be a hot topic in America. And mine was about drugs in America. All it says is drugs in America. And you have a minute and a half, I believe, to respond to whoever you fit.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
And my specialty, obviously, is not specifically in maybe the drug crisis happening in America, but I had the opportunity and the training to recognize I knew about different types of drugs in America, specifically cancer drug therapies and kind of the ways that we have major gaps in our system, specifically pertaining to pancreatic cancer. And so I had the opportunity to speak on that.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
So constantly your wheels are always turning to see in what ways does the question that's being asked apply to some facet of your life and your passion so that people come away remembering your answer.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
Well, I couldn't sing or dance and you have to have a talent to compete in Miss America. So I thought to give a speech about something, but I knew you can't just give any normal speech. Like if I were to talk to you about what my solo flight was actually like, people would probably be a little bit bored because it would be monotonous.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
And so the way that you take a speech and you elevate that is you really have to turn it into a performance. It's no longer just a speech that you might be giving like a keynote speech at a conference. It has to truly be a performance to put people where you are, bring them in and keep them listening and not looking away for that entire minute and a half. So I ended up meeting up
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
I had coaches that actually were previous actors or performers and kind of having them help me take something of me just talking about what it was like at the age of 16 to fly and turning it into something that was going to impact people or make them think twice. And I think what's been really cool is
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
Even though my talent might've been a little bit controversial to people, it's been really awesome hearing from these little girls now saying, oh, well, I kind of want to join the military or maybe I want to get into flying. I didn't really see that as a path for myself, but after watching that performance, it seems so fun. Like I really want to try it out.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
And I think that's pretty cool because now if my little minute and a half could have inspired some young girls to go into aviation, then it was worth it.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
I feel like the people that have come before me have made us extremely privileged. I can't even grasp what it was like for the women who were the first ones to go to the Air Force Academy. I will never know what that's like. And I was extremely privileged to just always assume that I had the opportunity to go and apply and attend the school, and I didn't have to fight for anything.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
So thanks to them and all the ones that had come before that to give us that, because it's still impacting us in ways that we honestly take for granted all of the time. We're the first women that joined the military. I take for granted being able to get up every day and just put my uniform on. And so now, I mean, those people were true groundbreakers, stereotype breakers.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
They opened up doors for so many women to follow them. But I think what I've realized about this past year is maybe I don't necessarily see myself. I see them not even close to what they accomplished for young women, but at the same time, You don't have to be a big first or have a fancy title to change perceptions of people and to open up doors for other people.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
Because even though, I mean, after I won, I thought, oh, maybe all it's going to be is just a flashy news headline. But it ended up turning into me being able to give hope to some other young women to show them that you don't have to sacrifice your personality or your passions in life to put on the uniform. And I think anybody can do that.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
You don't have to be Miss America or have some other big title to make a difference in other people's lives. Just showing up and doing what you love can open up so many doors for other people. And I think that is just as impactful as being the first. Anybody has the ability to do that.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
That's great.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
Absolutely. My mom passed away in 2018, whenever she was only 41 from pancreatic cancer. And about two weeks afterwards, my family was trying to figure out how we were going to deal with this loss and how we could turn it into something positive for other people. And that was how the Whitney Marsh Foundation was born.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
My mom was a really big runner and we wanted to make sure that we encapsulated her actual personality and her passions and things that she really loved in life into the nonprofit. So one of the main ways that we've raised money over the past six years is
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
has been through hosting a 5K, 10K, to bring people together, doing something that my mom loved, but also promoting some of those healthy lifestyles that can hopefully maybe prevent against things like different forms of cancer. But now looking towards the future, we recognize that Arkansas might be an underrepresented state when it comes to cancer care.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
We don't have one of the MD Intersons or the Johns Hopkins or anything of that nature. And we want to make sure that people don't have to leave our state to get the care that they need. So what I would love to see is the Whitney Marsh Foundation becomes one of the leading nonprofits for pancreatic cancer care in the state of Arkansas. so that we're able to bring in those resources.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
We're able if people do have to leave the state, then maybe we can be the ones that are going to pay for their travel so that people aren't having to have that financial burden be a barrier to the care that they need to receive.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
mean we saw whenever my mom went through we did have to send her outside of the state to get care and it's been really unfortunate because we know a lot of people in our state might not be able to afford to fly outside of arkansas maybe they don't have the ability to take off multiple days of work to go receive care from elsewhere and that is so unfortunate because everyone deserves
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
the right and the opportunity to survive. But with a disease like pancreatic cancer, with it being as difficult as it is to treat, to detect, to cure, you do have to go sometimes to those best places. And I want everyone to be able to have that same opportunity that my family had.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
Obviously, we don't have any perfect answers or solutions right now, but that is going to be our goal and mission as a nonprofit moving forward.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
Think of the people that are Olympians and the work that it took to get into something like that. The people that become the superstars, people that make the breakthroughs in research. None of that came from someone doing something easy. You don't get greatness from taking the easy path. You get it from the challenge.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
I mean, one thing that I've seen at least over the past six years has been that rise in survival rate. Even though it's been slow, it has been a steady increase. And I think that gives me a lot of hope because I talked to Julie Fleshman, the CEO of Pan Can about this a lot.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
What I always look towards is breast cancer, where they were 40 years ago, because that's kind of where pancreatic cancer is sitting now. 40 years ago, breast cancer was basically a death sentence. I mean, there wasn't high survival rates. There really wasn't anything going on in the field. And look at where it is now.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
the money that's put into it, the research, the early detection avenues, the survival rate, how drastically it's increased.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
That's the hope that I see for pancreatic cancer, because even though we're slow and steady right now, I think now that we've been able to break those first initial barriers to getting people to be more educated about it, to have more awareness, to get more researchers involved, I think that's only now opening up more and more doors to accelerate
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
One of the parts that I've really loved this year is whenever people get to come up and share some of their own stories with me and saying, oh, I heard you talking about this on the news.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
And I want to tell you about a person that I loved and lost to pancreatic cancer, because even though it's not a community or a club you necessarily want to be a part of, I think the family that I've been able to gain from the pancreatic cancer world has been pretty incredible. And a moment that I've personally also really loved this year was at our race.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
I've never had any survivors ever come to Whitney's race before and this year we had. Multiple, they had never met each other before and then ended up seeing on their T shirts saying survivor. So.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
You get it from the days that you fail and you fall down and you suck at things and you take that and you take your weaknesses and turn it into strengths and you learn from it. You learn from the people that are better than you. And I think that challenge and wanting to meet that challenge is what makes people into success.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
Them and their families and their spouses, they all walk together and there's this 1 photo of a survivor that I met and getting to hear his story of him walking across the finish line with his hand in the air. And I just think getting to see photos like that gives us a lot of hope for what we can achieve. And I know it's definitely shown to my volunteers, this is what we are working towards.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
We want this guy's story to amplify and be like, just like every other patient. And that's been pretty incredible to get to see.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
I mean, I would say if anyone's going to listen to any of the stories, they should go hear it right from the mouth. There are pages on PanCan's website of testimonies of survivors. Also on our page at the foundation, we run a newsletter every single month.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
And that typically includes interviews either from survivors or family members and their stories and experiences with pancreatic cancer, because we want to remember everybody's story. We want to highlight those, give people hope, but also give people the opportunity to memorialize the people that they love. And so we have that on our page and on PanCan's page.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
And I think reading through all of those stories always re-centers me to my passion, my purpose, and our mission towards a better future for all pancreatic cancer patients.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
I wouldn't get to be Miss America without the Air Force's support in so many different ways. One, I wouldn't have been able to achieve this without the mentors at the Academy, without all the lessons that I had learned from the Air Force, but also kind of what you just mentioned about how they had helped me prepare for the opportunity.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
I remember after I, even going to prepare for Miss Colorado, I was talking to my commanders about that to make sure I had all the tools and resources to make sure that everybody was aware of what we were getting into. And then afterwards, preparing them for Miss America to come up with some sort of mock plan of what we would want my year to look like so that it would be worth our time.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
We could get all the use out of it for what the Air Force needed to me and to ensure that I'm still meeting the standards as an officer. Because I also made it clear to them that Yes, this is my side passion, obviously, but the Air Force comes first because I made a promise to serve, sign my name on that dotted line, and that was my duty and my mission first above all else.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
So if the pageant wasn't going to be able to fit into it, then I would have turned down the opportunity, gone back to school, and gone back into my service. But luckily, the Air Force did see the value and this opportunity and the types of recruiting that we could change the mission force. So we had spoken about it in the months beforehand. Lots of people got involved.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
And then after I won, I called the lawyers and the air force to let them know that what we had been preparing for actually happened and let my commanders know. And they quickly got to work with all of the people at the Pentagon.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
And my congressman, I believe, ended up giving a call to the Secretary of the Air Force to talk about what this could look like and the impact that we could have if they kept me on active duty. So I'm really lucky that they did, because the Air Force has truly taken care of me so much this year.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
And I know my new commanders that have taken on this position to lead me through the Miss America process have really taken me in like family and had always made sure that above all else, they were able to put my well-being first.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
And I think that has meant a tremendous amount to me now recognizing the impact that it's had and how I can carry that into when I get to lead people again after this year is over.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
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.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
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.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
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.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
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.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
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
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
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.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
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
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
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.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
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
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
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.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
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.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
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
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
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
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
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
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
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
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
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.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
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.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
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.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
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.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
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.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
Because I can tell you right now, you are going to do a much better job if you do something that you care about and you work hard at it. Because whenever you combine that passion with your purpose, you are able to become more resilient, to produce a better product, to impact the world in ways that you could never imagine. So focus on that.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
Focus on the true meaning of what it means to live your life and stop living to somebody else's definition of success. Because if you do that, you are never going to find success. You're always going to be chasing the next thing and the next thing and the next thing instead of living in the moment and defining to you what it means to succeed.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
For me, it's always been about proving myself right. I never enter into things to prove somebody else wrong. It's all about, I know that I come in with the skills that could enable me to do anything should I work hard and do it right. Not everyone's gonna be gifted to be great at things naturally. I know that I wasn't gifted to be naturally good at school.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
I remember, I think it was maybe back in elementary school, I was performing really, poorly in my classes and somehow throughout high school, recognizing that my weaknesses don't have to remain as weaknesses. I can lean on other people. I can go to tutors. I can go to my classmates that are better at that subject than me to learn from them and get better.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
And that's how you build that self-confidence because you begin to realize that you don't always have to continue quote failing at something. You can use those failures and turn them into success stories because you work hard at them. You are the only person that gets to define how you succeed.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
So don't give up on yourself now because you're only cutting out a potential story that could lead you to the greatest accomplishment or greatest experience of your life.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
I would say even towards the end of her life, she was always focused on other people. There was a note that we had found in her phone that she had written to herself after her Whipple surgery was canceled. And her note was not focused on wishing she could have achieved just one more thing or wishing she would have stayed at work a little bit longer or sent off another text or an email.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
She was worried about her family, how we were going to continue on after she passed away, wishing that she had more time with us to just create memories. And I think that means a lot to me because I feel like we all kind of get stuck
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
in this race of going to the next achievement going and getting the next thing and continuing to run and run and never recognizing the true importance of life of what is directly in front of you and that is creating a life of meaning with people that are meaningful to you right in front of you my mom if she got to be here today she wouldn't be worried about winning miss america or
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
Winning a Rhodes Scholarship or staying after work just a little bit later to get ahead. She would be worried about, can I have an extra meal with my family this weekend? And so that truly recenters me after this year because success means nothing if you don't have anybody to come home to.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
And me getting to come home to my family, getting to come home to my fiance and sharing these moments with him. That's what gives this meaning is getting to share that with people, getting to create moments of purpose for other people that get to follow behind us. That is how you create meaning in life. It's not about the accomplishment itself.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
It's about what you can do for other people, how you can serve other people and create a life full of love. And that's going to stick with me forever. Thanks to how my mom really just carried out her life up until the very end.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
Thank you so much for having me.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
Well, thank you so much. I appreciated it.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
I kind of fell in love with space whenever I got to go to space camp. My family sent there, I believe I was in the eighth grade and just getting to be a part of a group of people that were passionate about the same things that I was, getting to be a part of that teamwork, but also getting into like the fun science of doing all the different things
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
do mock missions, pretending that we were astronauts. I got to be the botanist and just getting to do fun things like that with people that were just as passionate as I was really sparked that desire for me to go to the Air Force Academy. And after talking to a lot of those astronauts there, I had kind of seen their path and how they became astronauts.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
That's what gives them that greatness because of that willingness to fail and try and get up and try again until you get it right.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
And one of the ways I kept hearing over and over again was this aspect of military service. So that's what got me interested in going to the Air Force Academy.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
I mean, I feel like it was hard for me to understand how it was going to impact me in the way that it did now. But I remember one of the last things that I got to tell my mom was about how I was going to go to the Air Force Academy and about all of the dreams that I had for myself.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
So it was like, even if she couldn't be there with me in person, she did still get to be a part of it in some way because she had known what I wanted to go and achieve. But now I would say the biggest way that her passing has changed me is even though I don't want to be an astronaut anymore, I don't want to fly for the military.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
I've now had a newfound sense of purpose in life of what I love to do. And that's working on pancreatic cancer, whether that be in or out of the uniform. And I think that's been pretty incredible getting to have. her loss turned into something that could be positive for other people that can be meaningful and help their lives.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
And I think now that I've gotten to choose that path and I'm on a road that now feels more true to who I am and true to what I've experienced in life, it definitely makes me a lot more excited about the prospects of my future versus how it was beforehand whenever I was chasing down this astronaut path for years and years when it slowly became something that wasn't something that I was genuinely passionate about anymore.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
I mean, I tried to not show up on the first day of basic because I was really afraid of what it was going to be like to one, be grieving my mom all the way across the country. And I didn't have any of my family, didn't have any of my friends with me. And I knew that on top of that, I had all of these ways that I was using to kind of grieve or maybe keep my mind off of it.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
All those were being taken away from you because it's basic now. because it's time for you to focus on the training that they're going to give you. And that was incredibly difficult. I tried to not show up on the first day. My dad still made me go. The second day, I tried to call home and told them I was quitting. And he told me I couldn't come home if I quit, so I had to keep going.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
And it didn't get easier from there. I remember, I mean, all throughout my first semester freshman year, I wanted to transfer to a different school that was going to be closer to home so I could be there for my little sister, for my dad. And it really wasn't until second semester of my duly year that I really started to fall in love with the place and fall in love with what they were providing me.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
That was when I met Dr. Anderson, who's been a tremendous mentor to me that has really led me through so many important places in my life and Also met my now fiance and soon to be husband.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
And I think getting to have those people that supported me there made that path of grieving a whole lot easier because then I had people that I could actually lean on and confide in when the days of the Academy just sucked.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
And I think some of it is a little bit against your own will because when you're there, you have no choice but to keep going. And on top of that, there were a lot of people that I promised that I was going to make it through. I promised my mom that I was going to graduate from the Air Force Academy, that I was going to do all of these things.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
And then beyond that, I think in the beginning phases of the academy, it might be external, as in someone else is forcing you to be gritty and forcing you to be resilient because you have no choice. And slowly over time at the academy, it becomes more of an internal process of you're going through the suck because you believe in the process because you love it and you love the challenge.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
And that's over time kind of what I learned. Finally got to be able to see and appreciate about the Academy because nothing good ever comes easy. And I love that aspect about it because when you're done and you push through the hard stuff, you feel so much prouder at the end. You actually earn something.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
I mean, I would say a lot of my prep overlapped with other areas of my life because I mean, at the Air Force Academy, obviously in any military capacity, you have to be physically fit. So there wasn't ever like a, oh, I need to be fit for stage. It was, I need to be fit year round so I can continue serving in the military.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
And then when it came to interview prep, I was already doing interview prep for all of my scholarships that I was applying for. During my time at the Academy, I was an astronaut scholar, ended up becoming a Truman scholar, and then a Rhodes finalist. And those interviews are tough. And I remember every day after school, we had a public speaking lab at the academy for free.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
And I would just go in and I would have them grill me on any political question, any question on my resume that they could think of. And so when it came time to prepare for a pageant, I was already doing the work. I was just now showing off the work that I had put in a very different and unconventional way that you don't typically see in the military.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
I mean, I've personally always liked the challenge because you feel proud of what you've accomplished when you finish. I mean, think of the people that are Olympians and the work that it took to get into something like that. The people that become the superstars, people that make the breakthroughs in research. None of that came from someone doing something easy.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
You don't get greatness from taking the easy path. You get it from the challenge. You get it from the days that you fail and you fall down and you suck at things and you take that and you take your weaknesses and turn it into strengths and you learn from it. You learn from the people that are better than you.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Madison Marsh on Courage, Confidence, and Compassion
And I think that challenge and wanting to meet that challenge is what makes people into success. That's what gives them that greatness because of that willingness to fail and try again. and get up and try again until you get it right. And I think that comes with anything, but at the end of it, you also have to be passionate about what you're doing.