Honoring Women Warriors: Phyllis J. Wilson’s Mission of Storytelling and Service -50

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Kim [: 00:00:01

What does it take to rise to the top in the military while breaking barriers for women in service? In this powerful episode, we sit down with Phyllis j Wilson, a retired United States Army chief warrant officer five and president of the Military Women's Memorial who dedicated thirty seven years to national defense and leadership. From serving in over 35 countries to leading an organization of 200,000 personnel, Phyllis shares her journey of resilience, service, and how she's honoring the legacy of women who've served in the military. If you're passionate about leadership, history, or the future of military women, this conversation is for you. Tune in now. 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.

Kim [: 00:01:05

2024 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. Now, testament to the power of authentic storytelling. 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.

Kim [: 00:01:48

This is dog tag diaries. Today's guest is nothing short of extraordinary. Phyllis J. Wilson is a retired chief warrant officer five with an unparalleled career spanning thirty seven years in the United States Army. As a military intelligence voice intercept operator, she served across the globe in over 35 countries and played a pivotal role in special operational and played a pivotal role in special operations and national defense efforts. Phyllis is also a registered nurse, holds two master's degrees, and has been inducted into the Army Women's Foundation Hall of Fame. Her remarkable journey is a testament to perseverance, leadership, and the unwavering spirit of service. Please join me in welcoming Phyllis J. Wilson to our podcast, Dog Tag Diaries. Phyllis, welcome.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:02:50

Thank you. I can't wait for this one. Let's go.

Kim [: 00:02:54

I know. You are you have so much energy. I love it.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:02:59

It doesn't always last, but I am a night owl. So, I'm glad this is an afternoon recording. You would not have wanted me at 8AM, I can tell you. Afternoon recording. You would not have wanted me at 8AM. I can tell you.

Kim [: 00:03:08

Well, you were such an accomplished woman, but I wanna get into what you were like as a child. Like, that little Phyllis.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:03:21

I was a terror. I was the middle of five kids, two older sisters, two younger brothers. And I didn't seem to quite fit onto either of their groupies. I was too young to be cool with my older sisters and I was a bit of a tomboy. So I was that mean kid sister to them that would like cut the hair off their Barbies. Yes, I did that. And I will hear about it to this day. And my brothers were younger than me, but of course, being a bit of a, we were all outdoors kids, you know, back in that time, go outside and play all day long, come back when it starts to get dark. Yeah.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:03:54

So we were outside a lot and being a little bit older than my brothers, I was the athlete of the trio because I was older and fitter. But I remember even then, I'm in my mid sixties. So my mom used to be so upset when I would be, even though my brother's younger than me, five, six, seven years old, would be climbing to the tops of trees way up high. And then when she, that was okay. But when she'd see me in the tree, she would holler, Phyllis, get down from there. I'm like, but they're up here too. That's okay. They're boys.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:04:28

Oh. And so that, I think, kind of set the conditions for being in the military.

Kim [: 00:04:34

Yeah. Already that stigma.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:04:36

Yeah.

Kim [: 00:04:38

So you being that, like, outdoor, fun, adventurous type girl and then being told, like, hey. Wait a second. You need to bring it down a bit and come

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:04:48

You never been good about that part. Yes. Bringing it down. No.

Kim [: 00:04:52

No. You don't well, you don't I don't feel like getting to where you have gotten that you have that in you to bring it down. I mean, you can't get to where you are.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:05:04

I don't wear sayings and slogans on t shirts, but I did buy that one t shirt and it says women who behave rarely make history.

Kim [: 00:05:12

And you made history. So

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:05:15

Well, there you go. I didn't horribly misbehave. I just didn't stay within the lines of what my generation of women were expected to do.

Kim [: 00:05:26

Yeah. So how did your mom deal with that?

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:05:29

What? When I joined the military? My dad was,

Kim [: 00:05:33

No. Just growing up and you doing all these things that she was like, no.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:05:39

I was a cheerleader too. I was a girly girl once I was a teenager. I was a cheerleader. I did all the stereotypical good girl kind of things, but just still, fortunately, without the Internet and all that good stuff that we now have today or bad stuff that we have today, I was blissfully ignorant that there were limitations on what a young woman could and should aspire to do. So when I saw Apollo 13, when I was a kid, I was 11 or 12 years old when that happened, and I was like, oh, man, that's amazing. It didn't dawn on me that, oh, yeah, they're all guys, but I was always playing ball with my brothers and their friends. And so I never felt like, oh, it's just for them. It never crossed my mind.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:06:22

Just even though in retrospect, I look at some of those storylines, the seventies and eighties and realize, gosh, it was pretty exclusive, but people like me that were thankfully unaware that there were those kinds of limitations, we just did it and nobody stopped us.

Kim [: 00:06:40

And you didn't even know you were breaking barriers.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:06:42

No. None at all.

Kim [: 00:06:44

Yourself and other women.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:06:46

True.

Kim [: 00:06:47

So thank you for being who you are.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:06:50

Sometimes it's good not to know certain things and just, you know, it was so exciting, the opportunity, like to jump out of an airplane in the military. And then I found out afterwards, not many women had gone before I did. I knew at the time I went, women were not gonna be jumping into combat. And so it made sense that more men obviously have the opportunity to be trained because, God forbid, if we did have another like in D Day, where thousands and thousands of men jumped in, many to their own deaths, But the opportunities were opening up, and, man, I'd always wanted to jump off an airplane. So I just kept badgering until I think they sent me just so I'd shut up, to be honest.

Kim [: 00:07:28

I believe you're born with that tenacity. So did you have a big military family? I mean, what led you into that world?

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:07:40

Lack of money, to be honest. The military is a great way for people that are from lower incomes. My dad was born and raised Amish. He was a roofer. That was the family dynamic. My grandfather, I still remember him up on the roof even as an old man, all hunched over, but still pounding nails. My dad is one of six of boys, 10 and four girls, and his siblings. And I have two brothers, both of whom were roofers until one decided, I don't wanna do this anymore.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:08:07

I went to college. But, yeah, that was the family trait. And even as a girl, I was up on the roof helping either just dragging shingles to my dad or picking up scraps or making sure he had nails in his nail pouch and things like that from little kid.

Kim [: 00:08:21

Well, how did you learn about the military then?

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:08:24

I was trying to work my way through community college because nobody had ever been to college either in my family. And I didn't know what I wanted to do. I just wanted to do something. So community college seemed possible, and I had been a very good high school student, but nobody in my family knew how to prod me along because they didn't it's a road unknown, a path unknown. So for about a year and a half, I was working a couple of part time jobs, going to community college and realized this is gonna take forever because I could only pay for two classes a semester. And I'm like, oh, man. I'm gonna be, like, 25 before I even have an associate's degree. And I had wanted to become a doctor, completely unaware that that's eight years of school.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:09:01

And at the rate I was going, I'd be, like, 50 before I ever got done.

Kim [: 00:09:05

You would have been graduating now.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:09:07

Yes, exactly. But I'd be a doctor, so you never know. It's never too late. But as fate would have it, one day when I was really, I was eating Sugar Smacks cereal. I'll never forget because they were inexpensive for breakfast and for supper many days. And I was driving to community college. I was doing great in my classwork. I just couldn't afford to take more than that.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:09:27

Plus the books. Oh my gosh. The cost. Things you're completely unaware of as a young person. And as fate would have it on my Ray Car radio before you had Sirius or even, we might have had eight track tapes back then, but I heard a commercial.

Kim [: 00:09:41

All that you can be.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:09:44

Yes. Right? And I was like, Hey. And they were talking about college money, and I'm like, well, let me go check this out. And so I talked to the recruiter. I got, at the time, $25,000 for college, which was a lot of money. I got a sign on bonus of $3,500 I'm telling you, you could buy a really good used car. Think about a $2,025,000 dollar used car now. That's what $3,500 would have gotten you in 1980. And I can go to Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California and learn a foreign language, German, because my dad spoke that language and it drove me nuts when he and his family would tell the sit there and laugh and tell stories at family reunions and gatherings. And I had no idea what they were saying.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:10:24

So when they say, if you'll do this, we'll give you this money. And I'm like, I am in.

Kim [: 00:10:30

Well, you get to learn a new skill and go to Monterey, California? Like, come on.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:10:37

Pretty good gig. But they don't misunderstand us, folks. If you're listening, don't think that it's always a cakewalk. Because as soon as I was done with the lovely place of Monterey, California, with the seals barking out there, the sea lions, the whole bit, I was in a very, shall we say, tactical assignment in Germany, defending we still have the Soviet Union, and we were defending east against East Germany and the entire Soviet Union. We worked our butts off for and it was so cold there in the winters. You know, I joined the service from Florida, and now I'm in snow and mountains and freezing cold. And the gear back then was certainly not like the gear I took, Iraq or Afghanistan.

Kim [: 00:11:21

I'll tell you what. And I'm in my fifties, so I remember being in in 1995 and going to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri in January or February. And do you remember the old cotton PT uniforms? They were I mean, it was so cold out there, and I was like, you breathe in and the mucus freezes in your nose, and they have you with those old school PT uniforms. And they supposedly, it was winter gear. And I was like, oh my gosh. I'm freezing.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:11:55

Yeah. They want you to be thin and physically fit, and then they put you out there where you have no body fat, and they're gonna freeze you. And they're like, okay. Well, we're going running now, and you actually were looking for can we just start running, please? Let's go.

Kim [: 00:12:04

Yeah. Forget these warm up exercises. Let's go. Let's generate heat.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:12:08

Warm ups were not warming me up. I needed to get going. Yeah.

Kim [: 00:12:13

Yeah. Okay. So Florida to Monterey, and then you went to Germany. And then so let's talk about your career because my goodness, thirty seven years? We have a lot to cover.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:12:26

We don't have enough time to that.

Kim [: 00:12:28

Time lines, Phyllis. Time lines.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:12:31

Yeah. So young troop, I enlisted. I was came in as a, as a private and made run very quickly. You know, I was a great academic student, followed rules when I have to, and I had to. And drill sergeants in that, they scared the bejesus out of me. I was like, Oh, yes, whatever they said. Yes, drill sergeant. And same thing when I got to assignments, you know, there were people in charge.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:12:53

They knew far more than I did. I was like this country bumpkin showing up, Tell me what to do. I'll do it. Easy. And I got along with everybody. It was pretty easy to do, really. We all had a shared mission safeguarding Western Europe from what we believed was gonna be the Soviet Union just coming right on through. We knew we had to be really prepared.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:13:15

And so we trained hard. That's when you have that shared mission. Because I joined for the college. I joined for the travel, and I got both of those. And then I met a soldier. We got married. We started having kids. And being two people in the military in that era with little ones was almost insane.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:13:35

My entire paycheck and more was spent on childcare because they didn't care if you had a two or three month old. If it was your turn to be out training away from home for two, three, four weeks at a time, you went.

Kim [: 00:13:50

You needed to figure out your family care plan no matter what.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:13:54

No. But you paid more than your entire paycheck for child care. And then when you came back to get your child from a really great friend babysitter, the baby would turn away from you. When you're like, come here, baby. And the kid would turn away and hug the neck of the babysitter because that's who he knew. And that's heartbreaking. And finally, we decided that when it was time for me to reenlist at the end of four years that maybe not to do that. So I applied to go back to university because now I had college money and went into the Army Reserve and pretty much stayed that way for the rest of my career.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:14:31

But it wasn't always the one weekend a month, two weeks out of the year. I did three years straight in the early nineties when the first Gulf War happened. I was like, put me in coach. And so I was called back to active duty for three years and served at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, doing some really interesting work that you can't do some of these things, especially in the intelligence community with top secret clearance and the whole bit, any place else but places like that. And so still hooked, and by then had become a registered nurse, was working a civilian job doing that, but still an intel soldier. And then nine eleven happens, and my reserve unit, I was a platoon leader as an army warrant officer. I'd gone from becoming an enlisted soldier to an army war officer, which are we're considered the technical experts in our arena. And even as a young war officer, and you just hone that craft and skillset through the nest rest of your career.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:15:26

And so watching some of my platoon get pulled onesies, twosies, most of us were linguists, but an Uzbekistani linguist. I was not a Pashtoon linguist, but that's who they needed after nine eleven to get them over there near Afghanistan, Pakistan. So I'm watching the, oh, my kiddos leaving me and now I'm standing there with absolutely not a single one of my platoon left. I felt absolutely useless and helpless. And fortunately, I got notified from the Pentagon that there was an opportunity if I was interested. And I'm like, yes, yes, yes. And I ended up back in Fort Bragg, North Carolina with Joint Special Operations Command. And we actually helped in the hunt for Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was a mastermind of nine eleven, who was in Gitmo for a very long time, hunting them, just a total of nine people.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:16:16

But there was about 75 of us on this amazing adrenaline rush ride. We worked seven days a week, endless hours. I mean, we slept in our desk many times. Somebody else would take our uniforms to get washed. We were so into this mission because we wanted to help fix this problem. And yeah, so that's where I start from being this kid defending the fold, the gap, and not really knowing anything. But people saw something, and that's what I encourage anybody listening. If you see something in not even necessarily a junior person, but you see something that, man, if you would just spend a little bit of time with them, they might become even more of what they their possibilities are.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:16:57

Because left to my own devices, I would have never had the opportunities to do what I was able to do. But people said, hey, you know, And they did. They pushed me hard many times more than I believe. Leave me alone. But no. They you know, like, they kept pushing me to be better than I believed I could be. And sometimes you need somebody like that in your life, don't you?

Kim [: 00:17:18

Oh, yeah. I feel like that's one of the most beautiful things of the military besides the discipline and the leadership and the structure that they provide for you. The amount of variety that you get exposed to is amazing. I mean, be so if I would have gone through the path that I did of becoming a nurse, I would have probably just worked in the ER for my whole life. But because I was in the military, I got so many different other experiences that I would have never have been, which has shaped me to the human I am today, which I love. So it's amazing. But I wanna talk about being a woman in the military.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:18:02

When did I get started with this craziness?

Kim [: 00:18:04

Yes.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:18:04

We went to basic training in 1981, and it was a blended it was new that they blended the men and women in training. So in our company, there were three platoons of men, let's say 45 to 60 guys in each platoon and one platoon of women. And we did everything that they did. If we did a road march, we all did a road march. If we running well, the women did run separately from the guys, but we all formed up and did the calisthenics together. But it tended to be that our platoon of females ran as a platoon, but we still had slow runners. And they when they come out of the formation and they fall back behind you, they're not fall, but they not sure who else listening to make sure what we say.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:18:47

They're no longer running in the organized little box group. They're still jogging, but they're back behind us. Then your drill sergeants will have everybody as a group, organized group, doing about you know, you'll do a come back. You'll circle back and run back and let them get back in your formation and you'll keep running. There were always a couple of women that would chronically fall back and we'd have to circle back sometimes eight, ten, twelve times in one run to pick them up. And some of that you're just hanging in there to get it over with, and then you don't need that extra distance added on. So we kinda had some come to Jesus conversations with them about it. You're gonna have to find a way because it's mental.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:19:28

It really is. It's all in your head. If you believe you can stay with that group, you will stay with that group.

Kim [: 00:19:34

That's what you were talking about, that support system.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:19:36

Yes.

Kim [: 00:19:37

Having that support system because maybe they thought like, oh my gosh. Physically, this is gonna take me down. But really, it's the mental part and having even though you had to come to Jesus talks with them, maybe that's what they needed.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:19:48

Sometimes tough love is the best love, you know, not always, but every once in a while where they realize, do you see what you're doing to the rest of us? We're hanging on by our fingernails too. Come on. And so we would keep her near the front of the formation. And so if she'd start backsliding one row at a time, people would start, like, letting her know she's not gonna make it to the back. You're not. Stick right here. Sometimes the two women would loop arms with them and keep her right there, and she would be not happy.

Kim [: 00:20:17

Do you still keep in touch with her?

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:20:19

I do not. I've lost touch with her. And I wonder if anytime she ever hears this and thinks about bravo seven two in in in March, April, May of '19 '80 '1 at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, if you were in bravo seven two. It'll take her right back. Yes. But it wasn't a character flaw. There was nothing other than many times we're young and we don't know what we are capable of doing and without having and that's to your point, the military does a great job. If you see something that is possible in appear a cohort, some colleague of yours, don't let it slip by and think that they just automatically know because we all suffer from imposter syndrome.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:21:01

We all do. And sometimes all it takes is somebody saying, hey. I believe in you. I think you can do more. Push yourself a little bit. Okay. I never thought of it that way. And then I would, or just give me another duty to do.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:21:14

I'm already really busy. Now, get this one done too. And then you learn how to multitask. You learn how to multitask or go back to that person and say, listen, I have 14 things to do. You're my boss. Here they are. Can you help me to figure out what are the top three you want me to work on right now? And can the rest sit? Because I can't do 14 at once. What do you want me to do? And many times that's the best thing you can do, but we think we can figure it out or we don't want them to know that we're struggling.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:21:43

Well, everybody struggles.

Kim [: 00:21:45

And those are the most powerful words. I believe in you or I believe you can do this.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:21:51

Mhmm.

Kim [: 00:21:51

What a game changer.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:21:53

Yes.

Kim [: 00:21:54

Yeah. So I wanna ask, what was it like so being a female in the military and having your eight children

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:22:04

Yeah. Well, blended families. I did not birth eight, but I did help raise eight.

Kim [: 00:22:09

Yes. And so your three years overseas, how were you able to stay connected and feel good for yourself that you were being part of the military mission and the family mission?

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:22:24

Well, you know, that's that question about work life balance, and I will tell you that there's no such thing. There isn't. It's like to me, if you think about a balancing act, think about a teeter totter, a seesaw. Right? When it's balanced, it's no fun. You either gotta be down or up. Right? Because when you're hitting the bottom and watching the person at the top sort of almost fly off, they better be holding on. And same thing when they come back down and you pop up to the top, that's where the fun is, not the balance. So but be present in the moment.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:22:54

That's the biggest thing I've learned is whether I'm at work, be at work. When I'm at home, be at home. Put everything away, look your family in the eyes, and have a meaningful conversation. It was much easier when my kids were younger because we didn't even have phones. We didn't get our first got a car phone, and it was wired in, big box in the trunk, like 1988-'89. And so as the kids were growing up, even into the nineties, there might have been a flip phone somewhere in there, but the kids never had phones. They did have gaming devices, but just being present with them, sometimes just grabbing a controller and playing a game with them, even if you didn't talk, the fact that your shoulder was leaned up against theirs and you're still playing the same game, being present with them means a lot. You don't have to talk.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:23:42

My best memories of my time with my dad was when he would go out after he was done roofing. He would drive around and give the bill to the people who he'd worked for, hoping that he would get paid. And we would drive from point a to b to c, and many times and he never turned the radio on. And many times, we didn't say a word. It was a comfortable silence. I'll never forget how I felt because it was just me and my dad, and I loved those moments.

Kim [: 00:24:11

And then you brought that into your generation with your kids.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:24:15

I tried to. Yeah. Just to be there. You don't have to say anything. They know you're there, and it means a lot to them.

Kim [: 00:24:21

Did they have struggles with you being away?

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:24:23

I guess we never talked about that. So I don't know. I don't know. Well, four of them joined the military, so it can't have been that bad. Right? They're all combat vets, four out of eight. One of the others is a master's prepared, educator who now has four kids of her own. And so she's homeschooling her kids as opposed to working outside of the house. But she runs a good house, does a lot of great things, got animals in the backyard, big garden, homeschooling for, for little rug rats.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:24:50

It's amazing. Like I said, one's a nurse, one is, the educator, one runs is, regional manager from McAllister deli, sandwich shop, and I love McAllister sandwiches. So that's good. And the other one, she's still kind of finding her way. I love that where you have the ability to try something on for a fit. Nah, it's not quite right. And now try something else on. She's gonna find her proper path one of these days.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:25:15

Maybe her proper path is exactly that, stepping stone to stepping stone to stepping stone. Who knows what the right pathway is for any other individual? I know for me, I needed a little bit of the discipline and the rigor and the security that the military gave me.

Kim [: 00:25:31

Yeah. And it sounds like you influenced all four of those military wise.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:25:37

Well, I think for the others too, certainly, they're in the service professions, whether it's food service, health care, education. I mean, they're all doing things that are giving back to their own local communities, which makes a big difference. I think that's where we all find a sense of fulfillment is knowing that we're doing something bigger than ourselves. And I think they just see that. They emulate that, what their father showed them, what we showed them, and the experience of the friends and family that we surrounded ourselves with was typically that same kind of individual.

Kim [: 00:26:11

Yeah. Well, I wanna give you credit because I feel like your passion and tenacity really just even talking to you on this interview, you're, like, inspiring me to go find some more passion and other things to do. But let's talk about what you're doing now and how you're inspiring all these women. Like, you have mass projects going on.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:26:36

We do. We sure do. Yeah. The Military Women's Memorial, it opened in 1997, so it's almost twenty eight years old right now.

Kim [: 00:26:43

Did you help believe that?

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:26:45

I didn't even know about it. Knew nothing was happening. Hey. This is the mid nineties. I'm assigned at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, busy full time nurse, raising family. My first husband had been quite badly injured in the first Gulf War, broke his back, was at Walter Reed, had four major surgeries. So this is through the nineties, and I didn't have more bandwidth, apparently. I knew nothing about it, and I'm so sad that I missed the opening day.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:27:12

And I didn't find out that about it until it'd been open for sixteen years in 2013. A friend of mine was doing an event there. I went and I walked in. I went, what the heck is this? How did I not know? I thought I was fairly well read, fairly well informed, knew nothing.

Kim [: 00:27:29

To make you feel better, I just found out about it a year ago. And then I found out about you, and I was like, oh, I need to have her on my podcast so she could really educate us about all of this.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:27:40

Yes. So, again, the whole thing for my time in service, though, was I was a soldier. I was not a female soldier. I wasn't a woman soldier. I was a soldier. You know, I was an airborne paratrooper. I was a soldier. So well, I loved walking through there and seeing these stories of women before me, and I'm like, how? I never heard of them.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:27:59

How did that happen? And then as fate would have it, I retired from the army in 2018, and I started working the Pentagon, the big intel shop in the Pentagon for army as a civilian. And then they were starting their national search for the next president of the military women's memorial. And of course I knew about it, but no, one wasn't for me. I didn't think. But I had a couple of people, including a couple of women on the board of directors for the Military Women's Memorial, said, you know, you really need to consider. And I said, well, you know, the thing is, the first one was a general, the second president was a general. I'm a chief foreign officer, and I'm not casting aspersions. I'm being a CW five.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:28:37

That's a really great rank. But when you're fundraising, because we're not federally funded when you're trying to raise money, when a letter is signed by a female general asking for donations, people tend to be more likely to give. And I said, I don't wanna harm that. But I also I'm a soldier. I'm not so much in but if fate would have it, during the window of opportunity to apply to become the next president while they were doing this national search, I can't thank this gentleman enough, and people get really frustrated when I tell this story about him, but and I don't know his name. I wish I did. I had the nerve after thirty seven years in the army to park in a veteran parking spot. And as I got out, that gentleman in the parking lot goes, excuse me.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:29:21

That is veteran parking. I mean, yes, sir. I know. And the next thing out of his mouth, is your husband with you? Okay. Let's have a conversation, shall we? So we talked a little bit, and turns out we were both at Fort Bragg, both jumping out of airplanes in the same years. So I thanked him for his service. He did not reciprocate. We talked a little bit more and said, gotta get going, went inside to pick up a few groceries.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:29:44

But as I walked in, I said, you know what? If I had been a man that had never served and parked there, he wouldn't have known. How would he have known? And would he have said anything to him? And I know because of my association by then with the military wasn't more than 3,000,000 of us have served and defended this country since the Revolutionary War. And it just stuck in my craw. And I said, how many more of us have to serve and die if need be for this country until we can just park in a veteran spot? Either don't say anything or, hey, thanks for your service too, or just don't say anything. I don't care. And so I pulled out my nonprofit resume, dusted it off, and threw it in, and here I am five and a half years later, still going strong and learning new stories. Just one today, Lillian Saltzman. She was a World War two army nurse.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:30:35

Her son wrote to me because I spoke at a event that he was the bugler. He sounded taps yesterday. And it was the mister Saltzman, hear this with the best of intentions. It was the not the truest sounding taps ever played, but it was the sweetest one I've ever heard because it was not, like, by a world class musician. It was like an a sixth grade kid trying to play taps. It was adorable. And then knowing once he told me how much it meant to him that he had visited the Military Women's Memorial soon after his mother died, to see her story card that we have and I read about her that she served in England and Scotland in World War two. And so I went back because I can get into everybody's account, and I can see how little information is in your story card, my dear.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:31:26

You need to add more information.

Kim [: 00:31:28

Okay.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:31:29

We went looking. Did you know that in World War two in Europe, about 17,000 women were in the army nurse corps that served there? She is one of 17,000 amazing young women that no sooner than she graduated nursing school, put me in coach, ships over to Europe, and is dealing with all kinds of injuries and wounds and burns. And then she comes back. She serves from 1943 to 1945, and she comes back and moves carries on with her life. But her story she's movie star gorgeous, Lillian Saltzman. And I would have never known about her except her son, who's not a young man, obviously, because if she was still alive, she'd be, like, a hundred and four.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:32:11

So he must be in his late seventies, early eighties, and play in the bugle. There's an organization called Bugles Across America, and that's what he's part of that because they believe that there should be a real live bugler in any of these ceremonies. And so that's what he did yesterday. And because of that, and him writing to me saying, telling me about how he visited and looked up his mother's story right after we opened, I had to go look our story up and learn about this amazing woman. He didn't know that only 17,000 or so army nurses served in Europe. I'm like, she's one of 17,000.

Kim [: 00:32:50

Yes. I love that you were able to honor her like that. And even though it wasn't the best bugling, like you said, it was the sweetest and the intention behind it.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:33:01

Yes. I mean, it made me cry yesterday. I got all choked up when he was doing I'm like, oh, I'm so glad I'm done giving my speech because I couldn't have held it together. It was just, and fortunately as well, I did not know that his mother had served in Europe in World War II. Had I known that and then playing the bugle, because I'm getting choked up right now, as you can see. But this is what we get to do at the Military Women's Memorial. More than 3,000,000 of us, we have a little over 300,000 of those stories like Lillian's, like yours, like mine in that national database. But every woman that ever has or is even now serving should be putting her story in there and then adding to it, not just your time in the military.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:33:42

What are you doing to serve this nation once you hung up the uniform? Because that sense of service, it's in our DNA. It's not like, oh, it's cause you were in the military. No. It's imbued in us because we understand, really, it's selfish. It feels good to serve others.

Kim [: 00:33:58

Yes. And the stories need to be heard. Those voices need to be heard.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:34:03

Yes. Completely. Completely.

Kim [: 00:34:05

Have you heard of Sarah Blum, who is a nurse in Vietnam?

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:34:08

Yes.

Kim [: 00:34:10

Yes. Okay. We had her on our podcast as well, and she wrote the book. But to hear that story, and you and I as nurses, it's more relatable because we have that commonality, but being there back then

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:34:29

Yeah. Can't imagine. And I've talked with some of the nurses of even the Vietnam era, and we just take it for granted. You know, we give an injection, you throw the whole thing away. They didn't. You had to autoclave the needles. Don't let them get bent or anything. We didn't care.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:34:44

Break them, bend them, throw them away. No, Everything had to be sterilized again. They didn't have throw away stuff like we do now. And you're in a war zone. It's not like you can just run down the street to the nearest CVS and pick up something new. You know, you would have to make do with what you have. Let me tell you a great little story about another lady. Her name is Flo, a Vietnam Nurse.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:35:05

Crappy week. They have just hosed off all of the plain metal surgical tables. They've hosed them all off now that all of the wounded have been operated on. It's like a garden hose, folks. It's not like, oh, sterile water, but they're just hosing them down like you would inflatable bathtub or pool you've got in the backyard. So that's all done. But as she's turning and walking back, somebody hollers, Hey, Flo, you've got a package. And she knew if her family sends a package, there are Twinkies in there.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:35:34

They wouldn't dare not. But this particular week, it would have already been crappy. She rips it open, tears open the box of Twinkies. It's crawling with black ants. But her roommate, a nurse friend says, hey. Wait a second. We have an icebox. We'll freeze her.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:35:50

Throw them in there. Kill the ant. You flick them off. Flo, an army nurse in true army fashion. Next sentence in her story, best damn Twinkies of my life. So I guess I love her. And that's what I love to find when we go through looking in the story cards about these amazing women. I mean, you're in a war zone.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:36:11

You've just hosed off tables, and maybe some of them, those guys didn't survive. And now this Twinkie story is like one of the things that resonates with her and she puts it in the story card. And I met Flo at an event. She had come and tell me that she'd been there opening day. And so I, she wanted a picture with me. I'm like, okay, I wasn't there, but okay.

Kim [: 00:36:32

Of course.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:36:33

And I took her name down. Like I always check to see what those stories are because I want to learn a little bit more. When we saw that, my team, I would come look at this. We got to laugh. And we printed off our story card. We put it in a really nice, like, presentation thing. And we went to the store and bought our two big boxes of Twinkies. Now we did toy with buying those little chocolate candies that you decorate cupcakes and stuff with, the long skinny ones that we thought we could make them kind of look like ants, but we didn't.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:36:59

We like, no, she deserves to get real twinkies. No problem. So we sent it to her and she called me a couple of days later after she received it and said, laughing hysterically. She's like, I can't believe it. I'm like, you made our day. And look now, I still get to tell this story. And that's what these stories can be. They don't have to be, I served here, and then I served here, and then I served here.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:37:19

Tell me about a memorable experience of your time in service that brings you to life, maybe not for your peers or even the next generation, but think about fifty or a hundred years from now. Maybe Twinkies won't even be around. They won't even know what a Twinkie is. I have to go research that too. But these are the great fun stories that not only survive, but thrive wherever they foist us anywhere around the globe in a combat zone in Iraq. And that's what made me think of Flo in the Twinkies is my mom baked me oatmeal butterscotch cookies, my favorite, oatmeal scotchies. But they didn't arrive looking like cookies. They came in ziplock bags looking like granola.

Kim [: 00:38:00

Rumbles. Yes.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:38:02

Yeah. So I'm like, oh, I was going to share it with everybody. So we went down to the mess hall to the dining facility where there's always big, like five gallon tubs of vanilla ice cream. And we all scooped and we put that on top, this oatmeal, butter scotch granola. It's the best way to eat it. So I let my mom know you can bake more. And if you want to just break them up before you even put them in the mail, don't worry about laying them and making try because they're not going to make it to us unbroken.

Kim [: 00:38:29

I love that you're asking women, yes, to talk about their military experience, but also that, like, natural their comfort habitat of home life and bringing that into that military arena like the hostess. Well, that's the company. Hostess for the Twinkies. Yes. And your oatmeal scotchies. Like, that is so beautiful. The whole circle of life.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:38:55

It makes us feel seem like we're actually just regular human beings. There's nothing special about us. We just happen to have answered America's call and then went wherever the hell they told us to go. Right? And our families, thank God for them, that support us, whether it's my sisters, other family members, just even sending a card, getting a real note card from somebody, especially when you're so far away from home, because you treasure those. And you'll read that note, that letter, whatever, how many times, not once or twice, it's saved. And sometimes when you're having a crappy day or whatever, you'll pull it back out and just sit there and just reread that because you kinda it's your only escape, and you need to be with somebody that loves and cares for you.

Kim [: 00:39:37

Yes. So to all the military women, make sure you go on the website. Site. We'll have it on the show notes and put your story in.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:39:45

Yes.

Kim [: 00:39:46

Put your story in everything. You deserve to be heard.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:39:49

Yeah. Because I can't talk about you on the future,

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:39:53

if I don't know about you. The sad thing is nine out of 10 military women's stories all the way back to the revolutionary war are not in our database. Nine out of 10. And sadly, the preponderance of women that have served, more have served in the last twenty five, thirty years than basically from when we opened in 1997 all the way back to the revolutionary war. Less have served from revolutionary war to 1997, more have served from 1997 to today. And it's this current living group of women that keep telling me I was just doing my job. Nothing special. I'm like, I'm over you.

Kim [: 00:40:30

Yeah. I'm not sure we're used to having that platform.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:40:35

Absolutely. But you know what? If we don't tell our story, who will? Because most people don't know the rest of our story, and you don't have to tell any more than you absolutely want to. But think about this. This is a research database. And if we're going to actually allow researchers, myself included, when I'm no longer the president, I'm gonna have enough time. I wanna go into that database and maybe find I have all kinds of ideas on how I would write a book about, let's say, 25 or 30 women, like one per decade from the revolutionary war till today. Others that might be nurse centric that might be looking at different kinds of women in the military and all the different branches, including the USO and the American Red Cross, their stories are in our national database. If they served in a conflict zone, their stories are in there.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:41:28

So women like, oh, Marilyn Monroe, who was a USO entertainer and went over to Korea, her story's in our national database.

Kim [: 00:41:37

I did not know that. And you heard it right here on dog tag diaries and from chief foreign officer five, Phyllis, that your voice matters, your stories matter, and we need to get them into the database so we can generate those stories and have other women hear them and know that they're not alone and to just enjoy it. Like, I enjoyed hearing it about those Twinkies and the black ants and the butterscotch oak cookies and, you know, it's like this like you said that teeter totter, that unbalanced, you know, you're in this intense combat war zone and then you have the stories of you can kind of balance it out with, like, the giggles of a Twinkies with black ants and freezing them and yes. It's so important for us to get our stories out. So, Phyllis, thank you so much for being on Dog Tag Diaries. And, yes, I will fill out my form in more detail because I'm not used to that as well, having that platform. So thank you for inspiring me and inspiring women all over the world.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:42:42

I'm loving it. And I love your picture that you've got in there. So let's get some more text to go with it. And now you've got some food for thought. What you can put in there that might inspire you just don't know who's gonna read that story, that it may be a life changer for them. So there's your there's your challenge.

Kim [: 00:42:59

Yes. And we're all here for one another. That's it. The military women, we are all here for each other and to support one another. So I thank you for everything that you do. And your podcast as well is called what?

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:43:13

We do one in partnership with Wreaths Across America Radio. It's at 1PM every Wednesday, and it's called Her Story.

Kim [: 00:43:21

Her Story. Okay. We'll have to put that in the show notes too so everyone can start listening to that. Please go to her podcast and subscribe and like and do all the things to make this just a international wide project. And let's support one another. Thank you so much, Phyllis.

Phyllis J. Wilson [: 00:43:42

Thank you.

Kim [: 00:43:45

Thank you for joining us on this episode of dog tag diaries where military women speak their truth and share their true stories.

Kim [: 00:43:54

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. Your voice matters.

Kim [: 00:44:25

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.