A World War II veteran from Wisconsin got the surprise of her life on her 100th birthday on Easter Sunday when she was given hundreds of birthday cards from well-wishers from all over the country.

Sara Parsons of Wisconsin Rapids is original Women’s Army Corps Officer and a veteran who served in World War II, and she ended up receiving 753 birthday cards for her big day. As she celebrated her 100th birthday with friends and family, she maintained a positive attitude.

“I’m in perfect health,” Sara said. “I have no aches and pains. … You make up your mind that you’re not going to suffer. You live as much life as you can.”

Sara remembers feeling lonely and bored in 1942, as her husband Shirley “Jim” Parsons, an officer in the Army Reserve, was serving in Panama. She was with an aunt in upstate New York when she read about the creation of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps in the newspaper. Sara immediately boarded a train to New York City so that she could sign up and serve.

“I think I was the first in line,” she recalled.

Sara headed to Iowa for training, but she soon realized that she did not want to be a private.

“I was standing there, doing dishes for KP,” she said. “And I saw officers getting driven to dinners by drivers.”

That’s when she signed up for the officers school, and it didn’t take long for her to be accepted.

“I was lucky to get into officer’s school because I was so young,” Sara said. “But I’m nervy.”

Sara spent much of the rest of the war years serving on bases that provided for harbor defenses on the East Coast, explaining that WACs “did everything except for any job that used ammunition.” She left the Army as a captain to return to civilian life after the war, and she raised two sons with her husband.

Sara’s husband died in the 1990s, and since then, she enjoys being with her family and working out in her garden. Organizers with the Never Forgotten Honor Flight had asked the public to send Sara “Bazillions” of cards for her big day, and she could not have been happier with all the support that she got!

These days, Sara misses her Army days and says that she would enlist again if she could.

“But what are you going to do?” Sara asked. “I’m 100 years old. I read, listen to records. I’d give anything to be 20 again, but this is it.”

Find out more about Sara’s experiences in the military in the video below.