WASHINGTON (AP) -- Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy, who accused a fellow general of sexual harassment, bid farewell to the Army Friday and said it had made "measured and steady" progress toward fairer treatment of female soldiers.
With no hint of regret and no allusion to her own sexual harassment case, Kennedy said she had more than fulfilled the aspirations she held when she entered the Army as a second lieutenant 31 years ago."The Army ad says, 'Be all you can be.' Today I can honestly tell you I've been all I could be," she said at a retirement ceremony hosted by Army Secretary Louis Caldera and attended by dozens of Army officers and Defense Department officials.
"I've risen farther than I ever dared to hope," said Kennedy, who is the only women to achieve the rank of a three-star general. "All I wanted to do was be a leader and serve my country. I never dreamed there would be stars on my shoulders."
The Army is "one of the most effective organizations in our government," she said, addressing an audience of 200-300 people in the central courtyard of the Pentagon. "It is responsive, it is changing and it is highly accountable."
She noted that since she entered the Army, thousands of positions once held exclusively by men have been opened to women.
"The change has been measured and steady," she said. "But all of this occurs within the context of societal change. I am proud to have been the first woman in the Army to have achieved lieutenant general, and I know I will not be the last."
Caldera presented Kennedy with the Distinguished Service Medal in honor of her accomplishments, and he praised for "steadfast and faithful service."
Although today was her last day of work, Kennedy's official retirement date is Aug. 1. She has been the Army's deputy chief of staff for intelligence since May 1997.
Kennedy's departure plans were set before her accusation of sexual harassment became public in March.
Neither Kennedy nor the man she accused of making an unwanted sexual advance in her Pentagon office -- Maj. Gen. Larry G. Smith -- has spoken publicly about the case.
Calls to Kennedy's office are routinely referred to the Army's public affairs office, which says it cannot discuss the substance of the case.
Last month, Army investigators informed the service's leaders that they had substantiated Kennedy's charge that Smith had touched her in an inappropriate way during a meeting in her office in 1996. Smith, who reportedly has denied making a sexual advance, has been given a chance to challenge the findings.
With Kennedy's retirement, the Army has no other female three-star generals. The highest-ranking women in the Army after Kennedy are two two-stars: Maj. Gen. Nancy R. Adams and Maj. Gen. Patricia A. Hickerson.
When Kennedy joined the Army on June 2, 1969, as a second lieutenant, after getting a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy from Southwestern at Memphis, there was still a Women's Army Corps. Women were not allowed at West Point.
Her career specialty was military intelligence; in the mid-1970s she was a strategic intelligence officer with the 501st Military Intelligence Group in South Korea, and later she commanded the 714th Military Intelligence Battalion in Germany. She also served as a staff officer at the Pentagon's eavesdropping arm, the National Security Agency, from 1977-80.
Although Kennedy, 52, has not publicly discussed her sexual harassment allegation, she alluded to the issue in a general way during remarks May 12 at a ceremony at the memorial to Women in Military Service to America, at Arlington National Cemetery. She said women who are harassed should report it immediately.
"If discrimination or misconduct is not reported at an appropriate time, then public policy may never change," Kennedy said at the event. She quoted French novelist Emile Zola as saying he lived on Earth "to live out loud."
"Living out loud begins by telling a friend and then later telling people in authority who care," Kennedy said. "Our Army is filled with women and men who care and are in a position to change and improve the conditions in which we serve."
In her own case, Kennedy did not report Smith's alleged harassment to her superiors at the time. She raised the matter internally only last fall after the Army announced that Smith was to become the Army's deputy inspector general. In that post he would have overseen investigations of cases of sexual harassment.
Last month, the Army quietly rescinded Smith's assignment, and his official status is "on hold," according to Army personnel records.