Willette Alston-Hockaday served 33 years in the U.S. Army, from a 19-year-old soldier in Desert Storm to a Full Bird Colonel.

Willette Alston-Hockaday served 33 years in the U.S. Army, from a 19-year-old soldier in Desert Storm to a Full Bird Colonel.

After coming home from the Gulf, while serving in the National Guard and the Individual Ready Reserve, she became addicted to crack cocaine.

In 1993 she walked into rehab. She is now more than 30 years sober.

She went on to be commissioned as an officer, command a battalion, serve at the Pentagon, and become the first female Professor of Military Science at a historically Black university.

She retired in 2023, came home to Awendaw, South Carolina, and in 2025 ran for mayor of the town her father once led as its first mayor.

She speaks with warmth, humor and complete honesty about the hardest parts of her story, and about what leaders can do with theirs.