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New Mexico oilman Colin R. McMillan, nominated by President Bush to be Navy secretary, has died, the Pentagon said Thursday.

Bush submitted McMillan's nomination to the Senate in May to fill a post left vacant since January, when Gordon England left to become deputy secretary of the new Homeland Security Department. Hansford T. Johnson has served as acting secretary since February 7.

A Pentagon spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed McMillan's death but had no details of when or where he died.

McMillan, 67 at the time of his nomination in May, lived in Roswell, New Mexico. He ran Permian Exploration Corp., and was chairman of Bush's New Mexico presidential campaign in 2000.

He was nominated at a time of upheaval in the military's top ranks. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had just fired Army Secretary Thomas White over disagreements on modernization issues, particularly White's support for the Crusader artillery program, canceled by Rumsfeld.

Bush nominated Air Force Secretary James Roche for the top army job on the same day, May 7, that he nominated McMillan. Neither man had yet been confirmed by the Senate.

McMillan served in the Marine Corps from 1957-72 and was an assistant defense secretary in the early 1990s when Vice President Dick Cheney was the defense secretary.

McMillan ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 1994 against Democrat Jeff Bingaman.

McMillan was born in Texas and graduated from the University of North Carolina. He served in the Marines in active duty from 1957 to 1962, when he switched to the Marine Corps Reserve.

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"I think men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage. . . . . .
They've experienced pain and bought jewelry."