The US Army memorialized TV icon Betty White’s death Friday by noting the Golden Girl’s volunteer service to the country in the 1940s.
“We are saddened by the passing of Betty White,” said a tweet from the Army’s official account.
“Not only was she an amazing actress, she also served during WWII as a member of the American Women’s Voluntary Services. A true legend on and off the screen.”
White, who died Friday at age 99, had joined the group as a volunteer in 1941 when she was just 19 years old. She drove a truck, delivering supplies to the Hollywood Hills, White told Cleveland Magazine in a 2010 feature.
“It was a strange time and out of balance with everything, which I’m sure the young people are going through now,” White told the magazine. “We’ll never learn. We’ll never learn.”
The AWVS was the largest of a number of women’s auxiliary organizations during the war, with uniformed members trained to work on the home front to drive ambulances, sell bonds and provide aid in the case of an attack from the air, according to archived information from the National Women’s History Museum. At its height, the group had more than 300,000 members, according to the Military Times.
White, who reportedly served five years with the group, married fighter pilot Dick Barker but the marriage quickly dissolved.
The iconic actress died Friday just a few weeks short of her 100th birthday, after a decades-long career that included roles on classic sitcoms “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “The Golden Girls.”