Exactly a month after meeting President Obama in the Oval Office, the nation’s oldest veteran passed away on Monday.
On July 17, Obama hailed 110-year-old Emma Didlake of Detroit as a trailblazer when she came to visit Washington and the White House. Didlake was the nation’s oldest living veteran, and served “with distinction and honor” during her time as a private in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps in WWII, Obama said then. She won “every kind of commendation,” he added.
“I was humbled and grateful to welcome Emma to the White House last month, and Michelle and I send our deepest condolences to Emma’s family, friends and everyone she inspired over her long and quintessentially American life,” Obama said in a statement issued Monday.
Meeting Didlake was a “great reminder not only of the sacrifices the Greatest Generation made” but also of the “trailblazing” done by women veterans and African American veterans who helped integrate the military, Obama said last month as he sat next to Didlake, who was in a wheelchair.
“We are very, very proud of them; that’s why we have to make sure we do right by them,” the president concluded.
According to the White House, she was issued the Women’s Army Corps Service Medal, the American Campaign Medal and the World War II Victory Medal.
Didlake, who was born in 1905, was visiting Washington, D.C., for her Honor Flight, provided by the Honor Flight Network. Her caretaker and granddaughter, Marilyn Horne, accompanied her.
