A tearful Timothy Michael Poe apologized Friday for outrage over disputed accounts he gave on a TV talent show over his war service, including claims that he was shot in Iraq.
Poe's fiancee, Carrie Morris, told the San Antonio Express-News that he's had memory problems since a 2005 training accident and that he incorrectly believed he had served in Iraq. She said Poe had not “gotten the proper help.”
Poe, meanwhile, told WOAI-AM's “Joe Pags Show” he had set an appointment with a VA psychiatrist to “find out what's going on in my head.”
In a tearful interview, he apologized to “anyone I have offended in any way. I never intended to hurt anyone. I just wanted to put out there that, look, there's life after accidents. I love what the soldiers do for this country and I did my best for my country, and I apparently need help, and I want to say to everyone God bless you.”
Poe performed Monday on NBC's “America's Got Talent.” Occasionally stuttering, he told the judges and a national audience about suffering back and head injuries in a 2009 firefight in Afghanistan.
Morris wouldn't say if he would be in the contest's next round.
It also wasn't clear what he was apologizing for in the brief radio interview. Morris wouldn't let him talk but said he was sorry “for everything's that's been going on.”