has died of COVID-19 complications.Powell died Monday morning, his family said in a Facebook statement. He was 84 and had contracted COVID despite being fully vaccinated.
He had been treated for the disease at Walter Reed Medical Center. He also multiple myeloma, a cancer of the blood cells.When Bill Clinton became president in 1993, promising to lift the ban on lesbian, gay, and bisexual people in the military, Powell was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
He opposed lifting the ban (under which many LGB people had been discharged and others served in the closet) and said in testimony to Congress that open service by LGB troops would be “incompatible” with military readiness.