Air Force swimmer Madelyn Letendre is driven by a combination of passion to serve others and a relentless pursuit of excellence. Growing up in a family rooted in swimming and military service, she had early exposure to the benefits of both.
Both passions led to a standout Air Force career, highlighted by being named one of the 32 Americans to earn a Rhodes Scholarship this year. It was an honor that brought with it a flood of emotions — excitement, humility and a sense of responsibility.
"It was obviously a huge honor," Letendre said. "I went into it with kind of muted expectations. I've heard that the process is really eye-opening towards what you want to do in the long term."
Letendre will use the opportunity as a platform to merge her interests in flying, disability advocacy and mental health. Through the Rhodes Scholarship, which provides all expenses for two or three years of study at the University of Oxford, Letendre will pursue a Master of Science in therapeutic and translational neuroscience and a Master of Public Policy. The areas align with her goals of understanding and addressing mental health issues, particularly post-traumatic stress disorder, within the military community.
"Something that I consistently heard from people in the flying community was the prevalence of PTSD, and how impactful that was on the Air Force mission, as well as just the people who do that mission," Letendre said. "So it was really important to me that whatever I do in grad school related back to that, and the Rhodes Scholarship is an incredible opportunity to do that."
Letendre's drive to help others started inhigh school, during which she created a club focused on social integration for students with disabilities.AtAir Force, Letendre focused this energy on pursuing further research and understanding of how to support military families with disabilities, particularly those affected by autism. In this effort, she helped launch a military program at the Autism Society of America and helped write a book chapter on disability education at the University of Sydney.
This was all in addition to being a chemistry major and conducting research that helped solve a space biology challenge replacing sunlight with acetate to feed plants. This collaborative cadet research, scheduled to launch into orbit in 2024, has ramifications on how food will be grown and oxygen produced in support of long-term space exploration.
While all this work certainly provided Letendre's Rhodes Scholar application additional shine, her favorite question to answer in the interview portions of the process was about another cornerstone of her life: swimming.
One specific theme Letendre drew from her swimming experience into her Rhodes Scholar conversations is how it developed her ability to respond to failures.
"I think my biggest failures have been down in the pool. In the pool, any sort of failure is on you. You obviously have the support of your team, so a lot of your successes can be attributed to that, but it is an individual sport," she said. "I've had my fair share of swims that didn't go the way that I wanted them to. Learning from it, not getting bogged down, and knowing how to turn back around and go back to supporting my team, that was definitely an important lesson."
It's one of many lifelong lessons Letendre learned through the sport. Introduced to swimming by her father, who also swam at Air Force, Letendre found solace, challenge and camaraderie early on in the pool.
"When I was younger, my dad helped teach me how to swim," Letendre recalled. "In high school, I knew the things that swimming had brought me, and I wanted to continue that.The friendships, work ethic and doing something really hard every day, I love that kind of challenge."
WhenLetendre decided to attend Air Force, she reached out to swimming and diving head coach Colleen Murphy to see if there might be a path for her to join the team. Murphy opened the door without any guarantees, and Letendre improved rapidly enough to be part of the team's conference meet roster in each of her first three seasons.
"The team environment here, I loved the girls that I was swimming with," she said. "My class in particular has really incredibly supportive swimmers."
Their support was especially important when Letendre's senior season was stopped before it started by a shoulder injury that, if left untreated, could threaten her career aspirations as a pilot. Thankfully, she found some silver linings through the gut-wrenching decision to forgo her senior season in the pool.
"It was a pretty tough decision, and I talked with my coaches a lot about it. But as I sat down and looked through what had swimming done for me, I think it did two things: It gave me the ability to know that I could do really hard things, and then it also gave me the relationships that I formed," she said. "So if I couldn't do the hard things down in the pool, I wanted to make sure I maintained that relationship side."
Letendre transitioned to a coaching role this past season, mostly working with distance swimmers she used to train with. She also tried to be a resource to swimmers dealing with injuries or struggling with academic stress, while maintaining an urge to push her teammates to be faster.
"That was really rewarding," she said. "Seeing the team continue to do well and swim faster, that's been the part that's like made this year a little bit more manageable, despite the disappointment of not being able to do it myself."
Selected as a squadron commander at the Air ForceAcademywithin the Cadet Wing this spring semester,Letendre alsocredits her swimming career for some of the leadership experience it instilled. Letendre, who will commission into the Air Force as a second lieutenant this month, expects to carry those lessons with her to Oxford and, after that, into pilot training in the U.S.
"Having that kind of teamwork background down at the pool, I think that mentality really shaped the way that I try to run my squadron, as well," Letendre said. "I think it has really applicable leadership lessons and just taking that teamwork mindset into what I'm doing on the military side, as well."
