NEW YORK - For US troops in World War II, Margie Stewart was the girl they had left behind. For the Army, she was a wholesome pinup girl who had an important message for the boys.

The Army made a dozen posters of her, and ultimately printed 94 million copies. Most pictured a handwritten letter at the poster’s forefront. “Please get there and back,’’ was the message on some posters. “Be careful what you say or write.’’

Ms. Stewart, the Army’s official poster girl, posed in practical clothes, in contrast to the provocative pinup photos of stars like Betty Grable (“the girl with the million-dollar legs’’) or Ann Sheridan (the “Oomph Girl’’) that soldiers carried to distant battlefields.

Ms. Stewart hit a tender spot in homesick soldiers’ hearts. Stars and Stripes, the armed services’ newspaper, told of a pair of soldiers, one from Iowa and one from Kansas, agreeing that she had to be a farm girl - but hotly debating which of the two states she was most likely to be from. Soldiers’ wives applauded Ms. Stewart’s wholesome look.

Eleanor Roosevelt tried to stop the posters on the grounds that this salubrious image might turn warriors’ thoughts homeward, Ms. Stewart later wrote. But soldiers were sending barrages of letters to the Army asking who the pretty girl was and asking for more pictures. So nine more posters followed the initial three. These carried letters urging servicemen to buy war bonds so they could save money to buy homes after the war.

The same images and messages on the posters were included in inserts sent to soldiers with their paychecks, accounting for many millions of reproductions.

Ms. Stewart, who had long been Margie Stewart Johnson, died at 92 on April 26 in Burbank, Calif., her family announced. She had recently enjoyed a renewed popularity after the website reminisce.com printed an essay she wrote about her life. On her own site, margiestewart.com, she enjoyed answering requests for autographed pictures.