More than 70 years after joining the army, a 94-year-old woman who served as a nurse with the Tuskegee Air Reserve Base finally received a Congressional Gold Medal, The Grio reports.

Irma Dryden was honored for her service earlier this week at an event held by the Tuskegee Airmen Chapter of Atlanta and Major General Stacye Harris.

At 22, the New York City native accepted an assignment at the fighter unit that would go on to become one of the greatest heroes of World War II.

"We were to run the hospital and be there for these young men,” Dryden told CNN in 2012. "They were all young and they needed some counseling — somebody to talk to — to help them get over the bad times when they had not done well in an examination or something, someone who was there for moral support. And it was the women who they returned to the most."

Dryden also met the man who would eventually become her husband during her first day on base. The veteran was married to second lieutenant Charles “A-Train” Dryden, a member of the second class of pilots to complete the U.S. Army Corps training program, for 32 years.

Dryden is one of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen in Georgia to receive the prestigious medal, according to FOX 5 Atlanta.

"We knew we had a purpose," Dryden said. "We had to make this thing work, with a passion that other units didn’t have to exhibit."

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(Photo: Fox Local News, Atlanta, GA)