The nation's oldest female military veteran is dead. She was 108.
Lucy Coffey was found dead in her bed in San Antonio, Texas, Thursday morning.
Friend Queta Marquez, Bexar County veterans' service officer, said Coffey had been sick for about a week and had a chronic cough.
Funeral arrangements are pending.
The Indiana-born farm girl was working at a Dallas grocery store the day Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.
The San Antonio Express-News reports that she quit the store in 1943 to join the new Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, which stationed her around the Pacific.
She spent a decade in Japan before she moved to San Antonio.
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She visited Washington on an Honor Flight. She met President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, who spent 30 minutes with her.
President Obama released a statement on the passing of Coffey, which, in part read:
When Vice President Biden and I had the honor of meeting Sergeant Coffey at the White House last year, she was America’s oldest living woman veteran, and it was clear that the passage of time never dampened her patriotic love of country or her pioneering spirit. As we remember her life and salute her service, our thoughts and prayers are with her family, friends, and loved ones today.
