Colin Powell’s life was a classic American success story. He was born in Harlem to Jamaican parents, grew up in the South Bronx, and graduated from City College of New York. It was there, through the ROTC, that was the foundation to his 35-year career in the Army.
He served two decorated combat tours in Vietnam. He later served as national security advisor to President Ronald Regan near the close of the Cold War, helping navigate arms treaties and an era of cooperation with then-Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.
Under George H.W. Bush, Powell became chairman of the Joint Chiefs and orchestrated the invasion of Panama in 1989 and the Persian Gulf war in 1992, which saw Saddam Hussein ousted from Kuwait but left him in power in Iraq.
When Powell retired from the military, he was the most popular public figure in the United States due to his directness, leadership skills, and blunt approach to speaking to the American people.
During his retirement, he flirted with the idea of running for president under the Republican ticket, despite being a lifelong independent.
However, in 1995 he decided that campaigning for office wasn’t for him or his family’s health.
In 2001, he came out of retirement to serve as George W. Bush’s secretary of state, becoming the first African American to hold this position. He was at constant odds with Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld over foreign policy.
At the end of President Bush’s first term, he left under the dark cloud of the Iraq war and questions about whether he could have done more to object to it. These questions came after his infamous 2003 United Nations speech, which was based on false intelligence and the alleged WMD equipment in Iraq.
The speech included new details about Iraq’s efforts to develop biological weapons and asserted that Iraq hid missiles in its western desert. He even cited reports that Saddam Hussein authorized his military to use poison gas if the US invaded.
This speech was Powell’s biggest regret in life; he called it a “blot” on his career. It was later discovered Dick Cheney’s office wrote the speech. When Cheney’s office failed to browbeat CIA analysts into falsifying evidence, they avoided CIA involvement altogether.
Powell stayed out of politics until 2008, when he, a declared Republican, fully endorsed Barak Obama. And again in 2012 when Obama was up for reelection. In 2016, he was very vocal about the state of the Republican Party and his dislike for its turn towards populism and nativism. This caused him to back Hilary Clinton in 2016 because he thought her more qualified than the other gentleman. It came as no surprise when he endorsed Joe Biden over Donald Trump in 2020, even delivering a speech of support at the Democratic National Convention. He officially left the Republican Party after the deadly insurrection on the US Capital.
Powell passed away on 18 October 2021 at the age of 84 due to complications of Covid-19. He was fully vaccinated, but his immune system was compromised by multiple myeloma.
Colin Powell’s service to America was four decades long; he was the nation’s top soldier, national security advisor, and the first African American secretary of state. His pathbreaking life will be remembered as someone who voted on his moral code and beliefs, not party lines or agenda.