Army Brigades to Bestsellers: An Inspiring Journey of an Unexpected Path -34
Join us on Dog Tag Diaries as we explore the remarkable journey of Charlie Hudson, a retired lieutenant colonel in the United States Army and renowned author. From her early roots in a small Southern town to becoming a pioneering force for women in the military, Charlie’s story is one of resilience, leadership, and tenacity. Discover how she navigated through uncharted territories, faced with skepticism and challenges, to rise as a trailblazer in predominantly male-dominated environments. This episode is a treasure trove of insights into adaptability, reinvention, and pursuing your passion against all odds. Tune in to hear about her unexpected transition from military life to a flourishing career as an author and the profound lessons she learned along the way.
Charlie Hudson, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and acclaimed author, has been praised by USA Today as a writer people should know. A 22-year military veteran, she was an “inadvertent pioneer,” breaking barriers as the first female officer in multiple key roles. Her diverse body of work spans over a dozen novels, including two scuba-themed mystery series featuring strong female leads, a cozy quilting-themed series, and stand-alone novels set across the globe. In nonfiction, she shares insights on parenting, travel, and aging. Now settled in South Florida with her husband, she enjoys scuba diving and continues to write.
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Kim Liska served in the United States Army/Reserves as a Combat Medic, Combat Nurse, Flight Nurse Instructor and one of the Top Female athletes in the Army. Kim worked 20+ years as an ER nurse and decided to explore the world as a travel nurse. She's an Advanced Wilderness Expedition Provider and Chief Medical Officer for numerous endurance/survival expeditions in different countries. Kim has a son, Jace and a daughter in law, Sammy and 2 grand animals, Joey & Bear. Her dog Camo is her best buddy. Camo is the sweetest yellow Labrador Retriever to walk this earth. He loves licking snow, riding the ocean waves, visiting carnivore food trucks and loves belly rubs and treats. Fun Facts: Kim's lived in the Reality TV World! Fear Factor, American Ninja Warrior-Military Edition, American Tarzan, Spartan Namibia and more to come!
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Transcript
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Kim [:From breaking barriers as one of the first women to hold key roles in the United States Army to diving into the depths of storytelling as a prolific author, Charlie Hudson's journey is a master class in adaptability, reinvention, and following your passion. Tune in to discover how this inadvertent pioneer turned challenges into opportunities and carved her own unique path to success. Welcome to Dog Tag Diaries. I'm your host, Captain Kim. Our podcast is where military women speak their truths and share the stories that have shaped their lives. From moments of resilience to hard won triumphs, we hold nothing back. Twenty twenty four was a year of incredible milestones for this community. Our voice were heard in over 33 countries around the world, and we ranked in Apple Podcast's top 200 in personal journeys in The United States, a testament to the power of authentic storytelling.
Kim [:Now as we launch season four, we invite you to journey with us once again. This is more than a podcast. This is a movement. Let's break barriers, shatter silence, and amplify the voices of military women everywhere. Thank you for listening, sharing, and making this possible. This is dog tag diaries. In this episode, we are talking with Charlie Hudson, a retired lieutenant colonel in the United States army and a prolific author of both fiction and nonfiction. With a career marked by firsts as a female officer in the army and an impressive post military journey as a writer, Charlie shares her story of tenacity, leadership, and creativity.
Kim [:Charlie, I'm gonna take a lead from a USA Today article that praises you and states, and I quote, here's an author people don't know, but should. Welcome to Dog Tag Diaries. Thank you for being here.
Charlie Hudson [:Well, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
Kim [:Yeah. You are such a magnificent woman. You have so many accolades here, and so we have to learn about little Charlie. And then we could get into all these, like, amazing things that you've done. What were you like as a child and your early influences?
Charlie Hudson [:Well, the really easy part there is it was a classic upbringing of the time. It was a small Southern town. Actually, we moved around to two or three different towns. My father was a forester. My mother was more or less a stay home mom. I had an older sister. I had a younger brother, classic middle child. I was the precocious one.
Charlie Hudson [:My sister was the perfect one, which she continued for many, many, many years. Okay? And then, okay, then my poor little brother is kinda stuck there. Well, I call it little brother. He's only a year and a half younger. But anyway, so he was sort of stuck there in this whole process. Like I say, so it was a small southern town. I was born in 1953. So raised in that kind of environment, and strict Southern Baptist, which people that know me now have extreme difficulty in understanding that.
Charlie Hudson [:But, anyway What
Kim [:small southern town?
Charlie Hudson [:There were several of them, like, who we moved around. My mother was from Louisiana. Daddy was from Arkansas. So I was actually born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. But then like I said, we moved. And so the little town, one of the smallest towns that I remember, it wasn't even a traffic light. I mean, I mean, we're talking little town. And so then we moved to the bigger still, fairly small town, to Natchitoches, Natchitoches, Louisiana.
Charlie Hudson [:It's a great place. Anybody who has seen the play or the movie Steel Magnolias, that's where it was filmed. Oh, really? Absolutely. It is a university town, but it's basically a small university and it's, you know, and and then a lot of, agriculture around there. But it was only half hour away from the small much smaller town where my mother was raised. So that was kinda the deal. And so we actually lived there from the time I was in the fourth grade up until I was in graduated through college. And kinda same deal, my mother worked a little bit at times, but it was basically a one income, middle class, one income family, small town.
Charlie Hudson [:That was my upbringing. That was back in the days when you you went out of the house and, you know, and stayed out for hours during the summer and went mandarin and did whatever. But it's not like now.
Kim [:No. I love those days when your parents would be like, from the time you woke up, they or or from the time when you woke up in the summertime, they'd be like, get out of the house, come home when the street lights are on.
Charlie Hudson [:That was kind of it. And that was part of the whole thing. And again, small town, one income family. And so I always enjoyed reading. So the library was a very, very important part. You know, we didn't have like a huge library at the house. I mean, we had some books. But, you know, I was constantly constantly at the library.
Charlie Hudson [:And, again, that was in the days when a kid can be dropped off at the library and as long as you behave yourself, and the librarians did love me. And so long as you behaved yourself, you could sit there for hours and and read. You know?
Kim [:Yeah. What what gravitated you to those books?
Charlie Hudson [:Well, and it was, like I say, it was it was again, you know, so I always had a vivid imagination. And I don't know if you are old enough. You might be.
Kim [:I'm in my fifties.
Charlie Hudson [:Alright. When I was my age, virtually every girl that read Little Women that had any desire to write was gonna be a writer. I mean, that's just all there was to it. Okay? And so, of course, if you're going to write, you should read. Plus, I enjoyed reading. And so early on, I knew I wanted to be a writer, but I didn't wanna be a starving writer. But so
Kim [:Yeah. Do you feel like it was just innate? Like, you were born with this? You just gravitated?
Charlie Hudson [:It certainly sparked at an early age, and I would say around age 10, you know? Now the other thing is that I have to set the stage that even though I was raised in a very small town and my mother came from an even smaller town, My grandfather I mean, my grandmother was pretty remarkable too for that time. Anyway, and so my grandfather was a lawyer and then became a judge. And so, of course, he had his home library. And so he had this one book on Shakespeare, you know, this wonderful book on being Shakespeare's complete works. And so as I began reading different things, you know, and so he would give me quotes occasionally out of the Shakespeare books. And so we would do that a lot of times. And see, that was part of the whole issue was I intended as I was going along, you know, first I was like, well, maybe I should be a nurse. Well, then I discovered, a, I don't like sick people, and b, I can't stand the sight of blood.
Charlie Hudson [:I just wanna scratch it. Okay.
Kim [:I am an ER nurse, so I can tell you what those two things that you just said. You would not have done well in that.
Charlie Hudson [:Sorry about that. Anyway
Kim [:Hey. To each their own. Right? Exactly. Exactly.
Charlie Hudson [:So then because like I say, even though I wanted to write, I understood even then, you know, the drawbacks. So I was like, well, I'll be a teacher. And as it turns out, I also had a I was good with languages. And, of course, I didn't know that until oh, so backing up. So, of course, I always was in honors English in school and and the so the reading programs and writing, and I wrote some short stories. And usually got good grades on them and everything. But it was, again, you know, it was one of, you just can't, you know, there were no resources to allow me to pursue that. So I said I was gonna be a teacher.
Charlie Hudson [:What I didn't mention before, though, a totally unexpected and I guess, I suppose what you could say is this is where the truly unexpected thing that started happening to me. My grandparents, the one I was telling you about, that we all we cousins were in, like, batches. And so my maternal grandparents would take the batch of cousins on a summer vacation. And so, for example, my sister, who was the oldest in that, Laura, she got to go one year. So then the next summer, there were three of us that were about the same age. And so it was our turn to go. Well, through an odd set of circumstances, in Louisiana, they put together back then this was in the seventies. They put together what they call the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana.
Charlie Hudson [:And that was a statewide initiative linking in with some places in France to revitalize or reemphasize the French connection of Louisiana to France. Now we lived in North Louisiana, which a lot of people don't understand. Everybody thinks Cajun and Creole. Well, that's down in South Louisiana. We're up in North Louisiana. Anyway, And so there was a summer program in Quebec, way up north in Quebec. It was not quite immersion, but it was you go up and for a whole month, you're on a campus there studying French. And because I was taking French in high school at that point, my grandparents gave me the option.
Charlie Hudson [:They said, you can come with your other two cousins wherever it was they were going, said, or we will send you to this similar camp, which I was like, okay. This sound cool. So because by this time, I had said, okay. You know, I can be a teacher. And at that point, I'm like, well, hey. I'll be a French teacher. And so that was one of those experiences. And then convergence of things having to do with my mother's side of the family, an opportunity then came up to go from my actual senior year of high school to Angers, France to be there in a college program for a year instead well, for the ten months instead of having my senior year at home.
Charlie Hudson [:And so that really kind of led me toward, you know, this is perfect. This would be wonderful. It all worked out, and I went, and it was a whole experience. And speaking of a time when I started drawing away from my strict Southern Baptist roots, you guys spend ten months in France when you're 17 years old, and that will tend to change your perspective.
Kim [:You know, experimental years, and we'll have to talk about that offline.
Charlie Hudson [:Exactly. Exactly. So I came back, and like I said, we lived in a college town. And so, quite frankly, unless I would have gotten a full ride scholarship somewhere, and it was a good little university. And since I initially had planned to be a teacher, well and I don't even remember at this moment what caused it, but I decided to change my mind. And I said, okay. Instead of being a teacher, I'm going to become a lawyer and then join my grandfather's law office. Now in the meantime, my grandfather had become a judge, and his son, my uncle, had taken over the law office.
Charlie Hudson [:And so this is another one of those that quite frankly, I'm sure that my grandfather, it's subtly was like, well, you know. And so I decided that that's what I would do is that I would go into pre law. Again, it was a small university, so pre law, political science, it was a combined department. But I was also taking because I had always so I was gonna double major, then I was gonna minor. So I was gonna double major in pre law in French and then minor in Spanish. And just because of a weird way the schedule worked out, I actually wound up double minoring in French and Spanish instead of the other. That's the path that I was on. That's what was supposed to happen.
Kim [:That was supposed to happen. That's interesting. However, there's a turning point.
Charlie Hudson [:Howick. Again, my father made it very, very clear to us that number one, that we would have helped with our four year degree, but we also either had to get a scholarship or we had to work. And it was one of those that I was an alternate for scholarship, and nobody messed up that year, so I worked while I was in college. So along comes and this is before it's important to remember the under the timing here. This is in the early seventies. This is before this is when the women's all the women's services, women's early corps, or WES, or what have you still existed. And so they did not women were not even allowed in ROTC at that time or in the academies. But I had a bunch of friends that were in ROTC, and they were fun people.
Charlie Hudson [:And so what happened was women had to be recruited. You either went in as enlisted and went to officer candidate school or they had specialized programs. And they had a couple of different specialized direct commissioning programs. The female recruiter came around, and our OTC guy said, hey. You really gotta talk to her. And so I went in. It's difficult to believe that there was an offer like this. So here was the program.
Charlie Hudson [:It's it was called a college junior program. So as a college junior, then it was go to Fort McClellan, Alabama, which was where the women's army corps was, for the summer between your junior and senior year of college. Be there, oh, I think it was six weeks or whatever. It doesn't matter. Basically, it was try the army out and see if you like it. So it was like go. And at the end of that program, if you said, okay. You know, I'm in for this, then you entered into the program.
Charlie Hudson [:It was a direct commissioning program, which meant you went back to school as a senior. You received almost triple the amount that ROTC students received during the time that you were a senior. You then were commissioned as a second lieutenant. You only had to serve two years of active duty instead of the three or four that an ROCCT student had to serve. And then, of course, when you got out, so, you know, you were make you were earning money. And then when you got out, you had the GI bill. Well, what a great way to pay for law school. And that's fundamentally how that part came about.
Charlie Hudson [:As I went to Fort McClellan, you know, with yeah. You know, it was it was definitely an experience. But there were several of us. I would say half of us chose to stay with the program. So I got to make a little extra money while I was in college. And, like I say and so then I got out. Now at that point, though, was when the women's army corps was transitioning into the regular all the women's services were going away. A number of people were confused because when I was a senior in college, that was the very first year when they implemented the test program for women to be in ROTC.
Charlie Hudson [:They hadn't opened the academy yet. So 10 test universities were selected where women could take ROTC. Ours was not one of them. It was a coincidence of timing that I got commissioned through this other program the same year they first opened. So that's why there were people who thought that I was among that group, but I wasn't. I was different. But anyway, so then I I did. I got commissioned in August of nineteen seventy four, then went on to, Fort McClellan because we had to go back to the women's army corps training.
Charlie Hudson [:And then because they were transitioning, that's when we would then go into we would select where we were going into the regular army and then go on to that training. And that's how that all came about.
Kim [:Oh my gosh. I love that you would use the word coincidence because I feel like we already have our paths paved out for us. We just tell a story in our head of what we're gonna do, but there happens to be all these coincidences along the way to lead us in different paths. And that's what you did. So after Fort McClellan, where did you end up going? What did you decide you wanted to do for a job?
Charlie Hudson [:Okay. Now is when it gets a little strange. Remember, I've got a degree in pre law. I have a minor in French, and I have a minor in Spanish. So none of the women who were on the staff in Fort McClellan, none of the officers there, they had no experience with the regular army branches either because they were it was all a transition. So what happened was I just I'm looking through the different opportunities and I'm like, oh, civil affairs officer. Well, sure. Yeah.
Charlie Hudson [:I mean, it the description is perfect. And so then it was like, oh, well, you can't do that as a lieutenant. It's a mid level entry. I went, well, alright. So I'm looking. I went, oh, foreign area officer specialist. You know, I can go to language school. They said, well, no.
Charlie Hudson [:You can't do that either. That's also not lieutenants can't do that. And so believe it or not, of all and so, of course, there was the administrative, the adjutant general, all that kind of thing. A lot of women were going for that. Other women were all excited about going in military intelligence, but there was just something about that. I was like, no. So the ordinance corps responsible for maintenance and ammunition and what have you wanted to bring more women in. So they sent these two guys to Fort McClellan specifically to convince us that even if we didn't have any kind of background in it, that we would be okay.
Charlie Hudson [:And so there were, I think, either 15 or 16 of us that went well because for me, it's like, well, it's only gonna be two years anyway, so why not? And so that's how I ground up going to Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland and being trained to be what at the time was called a, mobility materiel specialist.
Kim [:Wow. Very different than an author and a language specialist and a lawyer.
Charlie Hudson [:Not even remotely anything I had thought about. In fact, because it was training as an officer, but it was also technical training. Because the issue was, if you were going to command a maintenance platoon, then you had to have at least enough understanding. So I mean I mean, we're talking, like, get nowhere in there, and, you know, day one is a hydraulic system, the next day is whatever. I mean, I basically knew how to change a flat tire, and that was about it. That was startling because I had never failed at anything. And I was having extreme difficulty because it was all done very quickly. It's like, here's the block of instruction.
Charlie Hudson [:Here's the test. What have you. And so several of us were struggling. And so we had small work groups. And so these two guys said, look, you're making this too hard. One was a mechanical engineer and the other, you know, had been working on mechanical stuff since he was, you know, like eight years old or whatever. And they said, we are gonna get you through this. Says, we are going to teach you how to understand all this.
Charlie Hudson [:And so sure is the world, you know, and so I learned how, you know, combustion engines operated and worked and all that kind of and I they were right. Once I settled down and let them teach me, it wasn't that complicated. I helped tear apart the quarter stud engine and put it back together and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, so anyway. So that's how that happened.
Kim [:And you were only gonna stay in for two years.
Charlie Hudson [:Correct. And so I wound up going over to Germany for my first assignment. And then that's where the real first started. Even though I had graduated and and, you know, was fully qualified to take on in what I should have done, which was being a second lieutenant as a platoon leader in the maintenance company, I was up in Giesen, Germany with the nineteenth maintenance battalion. And so that's what should have happened. But, again, I was the first female officer that had ever been assigned there. Now there were a few enlisted women, but there weren't any in the maintenance field. They were in administrative positions.
Charlie Hudson [:They there was apparently a discussion before I got there, and they were really concerned about could I really do that. Instead of putting me in a second lieutenant position where I belonged, they placed me as the s one, the adjutant, in a captain's position. I had no idea this was going to happen. Now that put me in an administrative position. That's true. But, nonetheless, it was a captain's position. I'm the second lieutenant with barely a year on active duty.
Kim [:Yeah. In an unfamiliar environment, and now they put you in an unfamiliar job. And being the first female, did males take to you well?
Charlie Hudson [:Well and that was the thing. There were some that made it very clear, particularly on the NCO side, that we're they just didn't think this was right. Others, you know, we're fine. By the way, because of the situation with what had happened with going to school in France, I actually finished college in three years. So I'm not even quite 22 years old yet. So here I am, a few months away from being 22 years old. I'm in this position. The entire staff the entire staff is they're all because this was you know, Vietnam was winding down.
Charlie Hudson [:It just was over. So the entire staff were captains and majors and, of course, then the lieutenant colonel that were all Vietnam Veterans. So here I am, this well, there was one first lieutenant who was assistant something. And so here I am. I'm not quite five feet tall. I'm only a little over a hundred pounds. I'm not even quite 22 years old yet. And now here I am, like I said, in this position supposed to be held by captain.
Charlie Hudson [:And all these guys around me, they just didn't know for sure what to do with me, and they weren't sure how this was gonna work. Now did I make mistakes? Oh, and then added to that is the lieutenant colonel who was the commander. Let us say this was back in the day when nobody worried about hurting your feelings, you know. He was a very smart guy. He was good at what he did, but he was just a screamer. And, I mean, he did not hesitate. If you were doing something he didn't like or you weren't doing something you should have been doing, he would just rip right into you and did on a routine basis.
Kim [:Very unforgiving of your mistake making.
Charlie Hudson [:Well, and that's only partially true as it turns out, because he was the one who made the decision to put me in this position. So, of course, what I didn't know, because I was like, oh my God. And so what I didn't know was they expected me to make mistakes. And so at one point, I'm really frustrated. And so the captain who had been in the position before and who was my sponsor when I first came in, he said, hey. He says, listen. I need to talk to you. Yes.
Charlie Hudson [:He said, you do make mistakes. He says, but the point is you don't make the same one twice. And he said, the boss won't tell you this. He says, but he is impressed with you. He says, now that won't make things any easier for you. But he said, but he he thought you should know that. I said, well, alright. Now interestingly, ultimately, that same commander went on to be a general officer, and I actually wound up working for him a number of years after.
Charlie Hudson [:And then he had the people didn't believe he'd actually mellowed. That's the way. I said, you think he's banned out. You should've seen him ten years ago.
Kim [:Take what you could get, people.
Charlie Hudson [:But, anyway and so then what happened was because I did that job, and then they were supposed to do a rotation. The problem at that point was because I had been operating in a captain's position that I had done some things that had upset this guy that, technically, I was supposed to go and then work for, and they all decided that would not be a good idea. So they decided instead that the headquarters detachment, again, would normally be a captain's job. But since I'd already operated at a captain's level, they were like, hey. So I became the detachment commander. Headquarters detachment commander. Okay. So now I leave.
Charlie Hudson [:So I'm still planning to get out, but because I left to go to Fort Campbell, I incurred another one year obligation because that's just the way the rules are. You know, you you move stuff like that. So it was okay because, again, I was just gonna stay for one year. Well so okay. So So I was supposed to go to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where I was in now with the five sixty first, you know, maintenance pertains in error, the gate. So I was supposed to once again, I was supposed to go to the maintenance company. And there was a petroleum company, quartermaster company that had all kind of issues, all kind of problems, and relieved the commander, then relieved the first sergeant, then believed one of the the XO. It was a mess.
Charlie Hudson [:They put a new guy in there. They looked at my record, and because I had held a captain's position and because I held a captain's position and because I had been a been a detachment commander, they decided that I should go into this troubled company to be the executive officer despite the fact that once again, this is not my field. Okay? I didn't know anything about petroleum.
Kim [:Did you get promoted to o four as well?
Charlie Hudson [:Oh, no. Just just go do
Kim [:it. Okay.
Charlie Hudson [:So I get there. I do it. Things are going well. So now we're talking Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Oh, and by the way, the next this boss I have, he's a total screamer too. He's ever been as bad as the other one was. Right. But, again, I mean, that was just the way they work.
Charlie Hudson [:Alright. So some I'm going along. And so now I'm actually coming up to where I'm gonna get promoted to captain. And so, again, by rights, the maintenance company is one that I should have then been in line to go command. And now for real, I'm a lieutenant. Except there had never been a female commander of a company of that size. The again, the headquarters company, which there was one other female on Fort Campbell, Kentucky that had a small company and administrative company. And so, of course, then the answer was, obviously, then I would be given the headquarters company and a guy would be given the maintenance company.
Charlie Hudson [:Well, my boss in the petroleum company was in a this is another one that, you know, I wasn't around, obviously. So he's in the discussion with the other commanders and the battalion commander. And so it's like, oh, she'll do that. So my boss in the petroleum company says, well, that's not what she wants. Commander is, well, sure it is. Then he goes, no. He says, she'll only agree to take that because you won't give her the maintenance company, and that's just wrong. So needless to say, my boss comes back from this meeting, and he says, the town commander wants to see you first thing in the morning.
Charlie Hudson [:Oh, okay. He said, well, maybe I should tell you. So so I walked into the man's office, you know, saluted all that. And he just ripped into me, just screaming at me about, well, you said that you wanted the headquarters company. So I have two choices. By the way, this guy is six foot two, and I'm still only four eleven.
Kim [:And you're like four eleven.
Charlie Hudson [:That's right. So I have two choices here. You know, I can yield or not. And at this point, I'm like, not happening. And I said, no, sir. I said I would take the headquarters company because you wouldn't give me the other company. So he yells at me for another couple of minutes, and then he says, you really do want that, don't you? And I said, well, yes, sir. He said, alright.
Charlie Hudson [:He says, but I'm not giving it to you until you come up on the staff and take this other job. So this job is a job. It's I'm the only so I'm the material officer thing. It's a staff physician. And, again, it's filled I've got four let's see if it's four or five senior gnarled NCOs, all of them. Vietnam, all that kind of good stuff. Because he was sure I could manage them. Well, I did.
Charlie Hudson [:So I did interact then. And so he finally, after a few months, he said, you really do want the maintenance company? Because it was over 300 it's it was it was over 300 personnel. And I said, yes, sir. I do. And he said, alright. He says, but I'm not giving it to you till you make captain. So I pinned on my captain bars one afternoon, and I took command of the company the next day. Therefore, becoming the very first female in all of Fort Campbell, Kentucky that ever commanded a company of that size.
Charlie Hudson [:And that's how that happened.
Kim [:Charlie Hudson, congratulations.
Charlie Hudson [:Yeah. So that's how it happened.
Kim [:Let me just ask you, how did all of that make you feel being put in all these, like, unfamiliar environments and all these firsts? Because I it doesn't sound like back then. I mean, even now it's difficult for a woman when you start climbing the ladder to be accepted by males. So how did you feel during all that? Well,
Charlie Hudson [:it was always a mix because it was one of those, I had never and that's why I refer to myself as an inadvertent pioneer. I never planned any of that. It was not me taking the maintenance company because I could be the first female that did. It was me doing it because that's what I was supposed to be doing. And there were only two choices. You're put in the situation, and so you either do it or you don't. This will explain it. So the same boss that wasn't gonna give me the company, as people are like, oh, you know, and they would say something about, wow.
Charlie Hudson [:Seems to be doing well. Well, yes. You know, I put her in that position. So then he is changing command, while I'm still in command. And so you had the usual thing, the big parade and the change of command. And so you're out there in formation, and the outgoing commander walks around and gives his final farewells, you know? And so he's making it from company to company and he's standing in front of me and he says, so we do the usual salute and all that stuff. He says, you do know you're my favorite. Don't you? I said, yes, sir.
Charlie Hudson [:I do.
Kim [:Were you in shock when he said that
Charlie Hudson [:to you? No. No. Well, I was a little bit shocked that he actually said it. And that was part of the whole thing is each time I was placed in one of these positions, even though and again, I mean, there were times I was in just total tears of frustration over things. But each time, didn't take all that long people to come around. I mean, you always have a few die hards. There's no way around that. And then the response would be, oh, why did we think a woman couldn't do this? It's it's like, well, guys, because you didn't.
Charlie Hudson [:And so then in subsequent positions, part of it was just timing because, again, you have to remember, women were not a large part of the force. They still weren't. So as I moved up in rank, I was of a rank that I could go into a particular job. And even though a woman had not had that job before, which went on to be about three or four different positions that I held, it was a matter of timing too. And so you're looking at my record and, okay, well, I did that, so I guess you can do this. Then you just that's how it all unfolded. But that's how I wound up because it was, like I say, I was the first female commander at Fort Campbell of a unit that large. And then I went on, and then I was the first female ROTC instructor at Hardin Simmons University because they just never had a woman before.
Charlie Hudson [:And then I went on much later for different things. So it just unfolded that way. One thing just kind of led to another.
Kim [:Well, Charlie, I wanna thank you because your perseverance and tenacity to continue through all of that trial and tribulations really paved the way. You are an inadvertent pioneer. You're a trailblazer for females like myself and so many others who were probably given a lot of the opportunities because of someone like you.
Charlie Hudson [:That was it. And there would be others. And it was because, again, part of it was and, again, you've always got a few die hards. But mostly, it was just that men were like, I don't think a female can do this. And then when they saw it, it was like, oh, well, okay. I thought, well, I guess, more should do it. That was really what it came down to. It's just like for me, women that had been in the women's army corps and done things even though it seemed rather mundane, same things.
Charlie Hudson [:I just built on the foundation they had already built. That's what it comes down to.
Kim [:It's true. And I do love that. I do love this female connection. So you you served in Desert Shield, Desert Storm, and Haiti during Operation Uphold Democracy. You retired as a lieutenant colonel, and then you finally got to fulfill your dream as a little girl.
Charlie Hudson [:I did. My husband got 11. Wonderful. Also, we we met on a Friday the thirteenth, by the way. And so, also an army officer. So I it was I retired. So we were in DC because he was still on active duty and he was due his Pentagon assignment. And so we agreed that I would take a few months off and I would write my very first novel in the called Orchids in the Snow, which you write what you know, and it was about, an actually an Air Force wife.
Charlie Hudson [:And one of those kinds of things where I said it in the Air Force because I said, well, if the Air Force wives don't like it, they'll say, well, she's really an army person. You know, if the army people don't like they say, well, she was writing about Air Force people. So anyway and then I ran into the reality of how very, very difficult it is when you have no connections in the publishing world or what have you. And so once again, this is one of those, it's like, okay, you got two choices. This is what you wanna do. And I I did get positive feedback, but it became very, very obvious that I was not going to be making a living off of this. And so, anyway, so ultimately, I did wind up self publishing because, again, it was exactly the same situation I'd had before. This was something I'd always dreamed about doing.
Charlie Hudson [:This is something I wanted to do. We ran a position to where I could. So after I beat my head against the wall, trying to, you know, find an agent and get published and what have you, I said, okay. And it just went from there. What it comes down to is the one that's just out now, Shades of Remorse, that's my fifteenth novel. And then I have four non fictions. And then I have four coauthored with different people for reasons. And again, mostly self published, and I've had a few with niche publishers.
Charlie Hudson [:But it's one of those where, again, you have two choices. If it doesn't work the way you hoped it would, and it's not exactly what you thought it would be, but you have a good time with it. And I have my loyal as I always say, I have my fiercely loyal fan base, small being the operative word.
Kim [:But that's okay. It is. It's a fan base.
Charlie Hudson [:It is. So this one, Shades of Remorse, I have two scuba themed mystery series. And so Shades of Remorse is a police detective in the Florida Keys. Then there's an underwater investigator, Chris Green, for the other series. And by the way, I see a quilt there. I have a four book quilting series as well.
Kim [:Oh my gosh. Okay. Cause I know you, you, you said you have 15 published books, so I have to get reading.
Charlie Hudson [:Yes, ma'am. Everything is on my website. Oh my gosh. Wwwcharliehudson.net. Not only is everything on my website, but in the entire first chapter of most of my books are posted on the website because we've all done that.
Kim [:Okay. And we'll have that in the show notes as well.
Charlie Hudson [:And there's a nice short story archive. So, you know, there's a lot of stuff there.
Kim [:Well, Charlie, I feel like your military service really shaped your identity and your post service life and even taking you into the writing world where it was almost parallel. You're in these unfamiliar situations. And like you said, you have two choices. And say those choices again.
Charlie Hudson [:And you have two choices. You either do what it is you really want to do, and it may not be exactly the way you wanted to do it, but you're like, I can still do this. Or you you give up and you say, oh, I can't, you know, I can't do it. I can't do it how I want it. Well, you know, you adjust. You adjust.
Kim [:The military certainly teaches us that that. Yeah. Everything's subject to change.
Charlie Hudson [:Yes. Indeed.
Kim [:Oh, Charlie, thank you so much for being on Dog Tag Diaries, and thank you for being, like, what you call yourself, the inadvertent pioneer. And that is someone who becomes a leader trailblazer without intending to. And that's exactly what you did.
Charlie Hudson [:Well, we'll see what happens with our granddaughter. She was nine years old in March, and she's a little pistol. So who knows what that's gonna
Kim [:oh, and leading up to that, one, congratulations for a granddaughter. And two, one of the closing statements we or questions we like to ask is, what advice would you give to military women, whether they are just getting ready to go in or if they're already in?
Charlie Hudson [:It's the old, old, old thing of a woman has to work twice as hard as a man to prove she's half as good. Fortunately, that's not difficult to do. And that's exactly it. You know your value. That doesn't mean that you're not gonna still encounter things. But there's a world of difference between skepticism and those that just, you know, still think women don't belong. I'm not sure there's that many of those left. And you just, again, you have two choices when you when you come up against it.
Charlie Hudson [:You don't have to make a big deal out of it, but you don't have to put up with it either, you know. More than anything, just by doing what you should do, then the naysayers will change their minds and those that don't matter. That's what it comes down to. They don't gout.
Kim [:I love that advice. I love that. And you lived it. So it's so profound and so powerful. So thank you again for being on dog tag diaries.
Charlie Hudson [:Well, thank you so much for reaching out. I really appreciate it.
Kim [:Thank you for joining us on this episode of Dog Tag Diaries, where military women speak their truth and share their true stories. Every story told here is a step towards understanding, healing, and connection. Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it. And remember, your voice matters. Together, we're building a community that empowers, uplifts, and inspires. Stay connected with us. Follow dog tag diaries. Leave a review and let's continue to amplify the voices of women warriors around the world.
Kim [:Your voice matters. Share your thoughts and reviews to help us grow, improve, and continue making an impact. Until next time, stay strong, stay true, and keep sharing your story.
