RICHMOND, Va. –
Staff Sgt. Diana Hudson spent her earliest years in a rural Mexican border town. Her family’s home, built from wooden pallets, had a dirt floor and no plumbing. Since then, she’s emigrated to the United States, served in the U.S. Marine Corps, started a family, earned an undergraduate degree and, more recently, became one of the top recruiters in the Virginia Army National Guard.
“I don’t think there’s anything special about me,” Hudson said. “I just keep going, one foot in front of the other. I just go and that’s it.”
Where Hudson grew up, opportunity and choice were both rare. She had just one pair of shoes, the wear of which was restricted to school. The rest of the time was spent barefoot.
Her family home wasn’t much, but it was home until shortly after her father died by suicide when she was just 10 years old. After that, her paternal grandparents locked up the home, barring Hudson, her mother and her two sisters from entering or even gathering their belongings. Her mother, determined to provide for her young daughters, worked hard in the aftermath of her losses and received a work visa that allowed her to work just across the border in Texas. Eventually, through a lawsuit, she was able to recover a small sum for the home and items she’d lost to her in-laws.
“My mom commuted to Texas every day for her job,” Hudson said, explaining that the Texas town where she went for work was just 15 minutes away. “She was cleaning and cooking and ironing and eventually she found a family that she worked for for a long time.”
Through her employers, Hudson’s mother met a man who took a liking to her. He wanted to marry her, and to help bring her and her daughters to the United States. She agreed and, a few years later, Hudson, with her sisters, came to live in Del Rio, Texas.
At first, the transition was hard. Hudson said the other Mexican families who lived there had adjusted to American life and she and her sisters hadn’t, but then Hudson threw herself into sports. From volleyball to track to basketball and weight lifting, Hudson did it all and, when money was tight, she said her coaches would sometimes pitch in to help cover the cost of her physicals.
Life in the United States was an adjustment for the whole family. As Hudson was named to varsity teams, her older sister dropped out of high school and fell in with the local drug cartels, which eventually led to her deportation and imprisonment.
To avoid following a similar path, Hudson knew she had to get away from her hometown and her new small Texan town. In 2002, she joined the Marine Corps. With her name on numerous rosters on her high school’s athletic teams, she was immediately ready for the physical challenges she knew she’d face after enlisting.
“The Marine Corps was an easy thing for me,” Hudson said. “I was already there physically.”
After her initial training with the Marine Corps, Hudson’s first duty station was Okinawa, Japan. Then, with a steady paycheck, she started sending money home, especially after her stepfather had an accident at work that left him bedridden with two broken hips and a fight for workman’s compensation.
“I never really saw my full paycheck,” she said. “I remember keeping between $50 and $100 from my check and then everything else went to my mom.”
After her initial enlistment was up, Hudson left the Marine Corps and went back to Texas and started college. Her husband was still an active duty Marine, and balancing the demands of both their careers was exhausting. She was ready to earn her degree, but just seven months after leaving the Marine Corps, in 2007, she was recalled. This time, she stayed in for almost another decade.
When she left the Marine Corps for the second time, with 13 years of total military service, she again worked toward her degree. To make some extra money, she started going to yard sales and selling her finds online. Finding quality items amidst cast-offs was a skill she picked up a kid.
“We never bought anything new, everything was secondhand,” Hudson said. “Even in high school, it was all garage sales clothes.”
Eventually, her success with online sales led to the purchase of a children’s consignment store and, for three years, she owned her own business until she started to feel like it was time for something new.
Around then, her niece said she was considering her own potential military service, so Hudson took her to the local National Guard recruiting office in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The recruiter they talked to there, Sgt. 1st Class Gertha Cleveland, helped Hudson’s niece and then asked Hudson if she had any interest in joining herself. Cleveland told her she’d make a great recruiter and that there was still plenty of time left for another round of military service.
“I said, ‘absolutely not, I already did my time,’” Hudson said, explaining that she was thankful for the help Cleveland provided her niece, but that she wasn’t convinced more time in the military was the right option for her. Still, she stayed in touch with Cleveland who proved exceptionally persuasive. In 2022, guided by Cleveland and Sgt. 1st Class LaTesse Hall, Hudson enlisted into the Virginia Army National Guard as a 42A Human Resources Specialist. Because five years had elapsed since her time with the Marines, she had to go back through Basic Combat Training which, 20 years after her first entry into the military, again proved no problem. She earned one of the highest Army Combat Fitness Test scores in her company.
It didn’t take long for Hudson to join the recruiting force in Virginia Beach after she completed her initial training. Today she works in the same office she was recruited out of just a few short years ago. Her background, and especially her Spanish language skills, have proved beneficial, not just to her own recruiting effort, but for her peers as well.
“I feel like this job was made for me,” Hudson said. “Growing up, because I was bilingual, I always had to explain everything for my mom. It’s like it’s come full circle and now for other recruiters from around the state that sometimes have families who don’t speak English, I’m able to help and conduct the appointments over the phone.”
When she boarded for her recruiting job, one of the board members asked her what “service after sale” means and that’s something she hasn’t stopped thinking about since.
“I don’t recruit numbers, I recruit people,” Hudson said. “The kids I’ve put in, I talk to them while they’re at basic training. I’ll give them rides to drill. Their parents call me while they’re in basic training and ask me what they can send. I’m there for them, I’m involved.”
Growing up the way she did, Hudson knows firsthand the opportunity military service can provide and sharing those opportunities is one of her favorite things.
“I love helping people and having the chance to give people the opportunity to go to school, that’s really what it is,” she said.
As she looks toward her future, Hudson is already trying to figure out what comes next. She’s sometimes surprised by all that life has provided her, especially when she reflects on where she came from. But she’s not done. She’s planning to start working on a graduate degree next and plans to set up her next venture before she leaves the military for what will be the third and final time, this time as a retiree.
“Everything I do, I want to be really good at,” she said. “I want to be able to hold my own weight.”
This year, as a rookie recruiter, Hudson’s mission was to recruit eight new Soldiers into the Virginia Army National Guard. Unsatisfied with that, she set a personal goal for herself to recruit 12. Now, as the recruiting year comes to a close, she’s closing out the year with 13 enlistments.
“It’s not just putting these people in, it’s mentoring too,” she said. “It’s talking to them and helping them grow and to be a better human being.”