Soldier and Statesman -
Conquering the Challenges

When Colin Powell tells the story of his life, he often describes it as a typical American story of an ordinary child who overcame obstacles to rise from obscurity to prominence. Yet it is equally clear that Powell is an extraordinary man who has played an important role in many of the epic-making events of our time. The resolution of this paradox is probably not to resolve it at all, but to recognize that the trajectory of Powell's life is a classic American tale—and, at the same time, the unique story of a remarkable individual.

"Mine is the story of a black kid of no early promise from an immigrant family of limited means," Powell wrote in his autobiography, My American Journey. "It is a story of service and soldiering. It is a story about the people who helped make me what I am. It is a story of my benefiting from opportunities created by the sacrifice of those who went before me and maybe benefiting those who will follow."

Powell has never forgotten the struggles and opportunities of his youth. After first leaving government service in the 1990s, he served as the founding chairman of America's Promise—The Alliance for Youth. As secretary of state, he repeatedly took time in foreign travels to meet with young people and talk to them about their hopes and about the challenges they face as the leaders of the next generation.

At the 2004 Seeds of Peace International Camp, Powell said: "In all of my conversations with young people, we talk about families, we talk about histories, we talk about hopes and dreams, we talk about fears and doubts, and in all these conversations we come away with a richer appreciation of one another as fellow human beings. ... When people share the ideas and feelings that make them human, peace has a chance to take root in their hearts."

Colin Luther Powell, born in 1937, grew up in the diverse ethnic and religious neighborhood of Kelly Street in New York City's South Bronx. His parents were immigrants from Jamaica who set high standards and valued education. By his own description, however, young Colin lacked much focus or direction. "I had not yet excelled at anything," he wrote in his autobiography. "I was the 'good kid,' the 'good worker,' no more." That changed when he entered the City College of New York—where he majored in geology—and found his calling and career when he joined the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC). Powell flourished in the military's structure and discipline—he became commander of the unit's precision drill team—and, in 1958, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army.

Powell served two combat tours in Vietnam, was wounded twice in action, and later commanded troops in Korea, Germany, and the United States. He also earned a master's degree in business administration and won a White House fellowship. "I grew up and chose a soldier's life," Powell wrote years later. "I lost close friends in war. Later, I commanded young men and women who went willingly into harm's way for our country, some never to return. A day doesn't pass that I don't think of them."

In 1986, then-Lieutenant General Colin Powell joined the Reagan administration; a year later, President Ronald Reagan named him as his national security advisor at a time when he coordinated history-making summit meetings with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. Powell subsequently served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under the first President George Bush as the United States led an international coalition to liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein in Operation Desert Storm. He retired from the military in 1993 as one of the country's most highly regarded public figures.

Political unity and military strength helped the West contain the Soviet Union, Powell has said, but it was the power of ideas that ended the Cold War and brought democracy to Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. "The power of freedom for people, the power of individual liberty ... these are powerful forces that reshaped the Cold War world into the world we are in now. ... I believe these forces are irresistible," Powell observed.

As secretary of state from 2001 to 2005, Colin Powell directed American diplomacy at a time of new and often unprecedented challenges: leading a global coalition in the war against terrorism, helping establish nascent democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq, supporting the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, meeting the challenge of the AIDS pandemic, working for a just and equitable Middle East peace, and championing the growth of freedom and economic opportunity throughout the world.

In many respects, Colin Powell followed in the footsteps of another great American soldier-statesman, George Marshall, who led the United States military during World War II and then formulated the Marshall Plan to assist European recovery and help win the peace as secretary of state.

"George C. Marshall is a personal hero of mine," Powell said upon receiving the Marshall Foundation Award in 2003. "His portrait hangs in my office. ... When I sit in my office and I'm dealing with the most difficult problems, I look straight ahead at George."

Powell married the former Alma Johnson in 1962, and they have a son, Michael, two daughters, Linda and Anne, and two grandsons. Since the 1970s, his favorite escape from work pressures has been to repair older model Volvo automobiles. As Powell told students at a Berlin school recently: "For me, that's very relaxing, to work on my cars, because unlike political problems, when my car doesn't start, I can figure it out quickly."

Colin Powell paid tribute to the enduring values that shaped his life in his 2004 remarks to the National Italian American Foundation: "Wherever I go in the world, I carry deep inside me that kid from Kelly Street—the spirit of an America that is united in its diversity, all embracing in its humanity, and so full of possibility. That democratic spirit has always been our country's greatest strength, and it remains our greatest hope. ... And that generous spirit continues to be our greatest gift to the world." — Howard Cincotta

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