Theresa Vail

“I think it’s wonderful that I’m going to get a chance to help people with my story.” She gave Army Times a candid phone interview in the midst of her yearlong Miss Kansas stint. She plans to begin four years of Army school next fall and go active duty afterward. She is an expert marksman with an M16 rifle, a bowhunter and is fluent in Chinese. “My goal is just to show women that you can have the best of both worlds, that you don’t have to be categorized, that you don’t have to allow other people to categorize you. I know being in the military, I was put in this box that I couldn’t do feminine things, but I know my female soldiers, they all get that. I just wanted to show women, you can be a tomboy, you can have a feminine side. You can have it all if you want it.”
Vail wanted to show off her archery skills in the talent competition, but the pageant’s insurance wouldn’t allow it. Instead, she learned the aria “Nessun Dorma” 48 hours before she was scheduled to perform. But the hardest part of pageants, she said, was “dealing with different mentalities and maturity levels of the contestants.” Joining the Guard at 17, instilled in her a maturity level many of her competitors lacked. She saw immaturity among the broader public when the Twitter-verse erupted in racist ranting that Miss America winner Nina Davuluri was not American enough — and worse. Vail, who wrote in her blog defending Davuluri, called the negative reaction disgusting. She was born in Syracuse, N.Y., and people are calling her a terrorist, an Arab. She’s Indian-American.
Vail said her superiors welcomed her participation in the Miss America pageant as an opportunity for her and a recruitment tool for them. The reaction among co-workers and the military community has been predominantly positive. At the competition, she was thrilled to receive a backstage visit from a group of service members’ widows and their children.