Pamela Murphy, widow of WWII hero and actor, Audie Murphy, died peacefully at her home on April 8, 2010. She is survived by her sons, Terry and James. Pam established her own distinctive 30 year career working as a patient liaison at the Sepulveda VA Hospital, where she was much beloved. Pam was involved in the Sepulveda VA hospital and care center for over 35 years, treating every veteran who visited the facility as if they were a VIP.

She died last week at the age of 90. After Audie died, they became her boys, every last one of them. Any soldier or Marine who walked into the Sepulveda VA hospital in the last 35 years got her VIP treatment. The widow of the most decorated soldier in World War II would walk the hallways with her clipboard in hand making sure her boys got to see a specialist or doctor STAT. If they didn't, watch out. Her boys weren't Medal of Honor recipients or movie stars like Audie, but that didn't matter. That they’d served their country was good enough for her. She never called a veteran by his first name, always "Mister." Respect came with the job. "Nobody could cut through VA red tape faster than Mrs. Murphy," said a veteran, speaking for thousands of vets she befriended over the years. "Many times I watched her march a vet who had been waiting more than an hour right into the doctor's office.

She was even reprimanded a few times, but it didn't stop Mrs. Murphy. "Only her boys mattered. She was our angel." Last week, Sepulveda VA 's angel for the last 35 years died peacefully in bed. "She was in bed watching the Laker game, took one last breath, and that was it," said Diane Ruiz, who worked at the VA and cared for Pam in her last years in her Canoga Park apartment.

It was the same apartment Pam moved into after Audie died in a plane crash on Memorial Day weekend in 1971. Audie died broke, squandering million of dollars on gambling, bad investments, and yes, other women. "Even with the adultery and desertion at the end, he always remained my hero," Pam told me. She went from a comfortable ranch-style home to a small apartment - taking a clerk's job at the VA to support herself and pay off her husband's debts. No one knew her, but word spread that the nice lady with the clipboard was Audie Murphy's widow. It was like saying Patton had just walked in. Men with tears in their eyes walked up and gave her a hug. "Thank you," they said, over and over. The first few years, the hugs were for Audie's heroism. The last 30 years, they were for Pam.

She hated the spotlight. One year I asked her to be the focus of a Veteran's Day column for all the work she’d done. Pam shook her head. "Honor them, not me," she said, pointing to a group of vets in the hall. "They're the ones who deserve it." The vets disagreed. Mrs. Murphy deserved the accolades, they said. Incredibly, in 2002, Pam's job was going to be eliminated in budget cuts. She was thought to be ‘excess staff.’ "I don't think cutting down on veterans' complaints and showing them the respect they deserve should be considered excess staff," she told me. Neither did the veterans.

They went ballistic, holding a rally for her outside the VA gates. Soon, word came down from the top of the VA. Pam Murphy was no longer considered "excess staff." She remained full time at the VA until 2007 when she was 87. "The last time she was here was a couple of years ago for the conference we had for homeless veterans," said Becky James, coordinator of the VA's Veterans History Project. Pam wanted to see if there was anything she could do to help more of her boys.

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