To my family … past, present, and future
Perhaps this is the beginning of my fascination with automobiles. We are on a summer Sunday outing to Uncle Joe and Aunt See's house in Jamaica, Queens, around 1942. The family dream was to move “up” from renting an apartment in the city to owning a house in the suburbs.
These are the earliest pictures I have of my parents, which I found after their deaths. These are their original British passport photos. Pop’s is from 1920, when he was twenty-two, and Mom’s is from 1924, when she was twenty-two. It was with these documents that they came to the United States, met each other, and began new lives.
“THE LION KING”
I was too young to protest the indignity of this photo. It was not even our trophy skin! In those pre-animal rights days—this was 1937—proud parents eager to show off their pride and joy asked for such photographic-studio props to suggest an affluence and level of importance the family did not yet enjoy.
A SUNDAY OUTING WITH MY FATHER
Luther Powell, a snappy dresser, with his well-togged, big-footed son, Colin, around 1943 on a Sunday morning on 167th Street, just down from Prospect Avenue. We were on the way home from paying our ritual after-church visit to my Aunt Beryl, Luther’s sister.
MY ROOTS: IN JAMAICA AND THE BRONX
The cottage at Top Hill in St. Elizabeth parish, where my father was born, photographed when Alma and I visited in 1992. The cottage is referred to as “the old house” and is still being used. My grandparents are buried in the front yard just to the right of this homecoming scene.
Kelly Street, where I was brought up, is being readied for a block party to celebrate V-J day in 1945. Our apartment is at 952 Kelly Street, the first building in the row of lower housing on the right. The picture was taken at the corner of 163rd Street, looking toward Westchester Avenue, with the elevated section of the IRT subway in midpicture.
Hanging out with my sister, Marilyn, in front of our first apartment house in the Bronx, 980 Fox Street.
A YOUNG MAN IN THE BRONX
I am in my Sunday best near Hunts Point in the Bronx in 1953. The following year I entered the City College of New York to study engineering. I dropped engineering after one semester and switched to geology to stay in college.
My “gang” in the early 1950s, two blacks, two Lithuanians, and a Puerto Rican: typical of the ethnic mix of Banana Kelly then. From left to right: Victor Ramirez; Eddie Grant; me; Tony Grant, Eddie’s brother, on leave from the Navy; and Robley McIntosh.
Gene Norman, my best friend on Kelly Street, lived just across the street from us. He served in the Marine Corps and then went into architecture, rising to become Landmarks Commissioner for the City of New York.
I entered ROTC in the fall of 1954. Here I am in my first uniform. I had found something that I loved and that I did well.
THE PERSHING RIFLES, A TURNING POINT IN MY LIFE
The CCNY Pershing Rifles in 1957. I am seated in the front row. On my right is my friend and role model, Ronnie Brooks. Seated next to Ronnie is our faculty advisor, Major Jones, who kept us off probation. Directly behind me (second row, fourth from right) is Antonio Mavroudis, who saw me as his role model. Tony was killed in Vietnam. John Young, behind Tony (third row, third from right), was also killed in Vietnam, as was another Pershing Rifleman, Alan Pasco (not pictured). Ronnie died of a heart attack in 1989. The rest of us are still in touch as a group and have frequent reunions.
Left: The summer of my junior year in college was spent at ROTC summer camp at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Complete with .45 caliber pistol, safely without ammo, I am getting ready to start my tour as the Company D duty officer.
I BECOME A RANGER, AND GET MY FIRST FOREIGN POST
Inset: Coleman Barracks, Gelnhausen, Germany, in 1960. As a first lieutenant, at right, swagger stick in hand, I watch with some anxiety as Lieutenant Colonel Jim Carter, commander of the 2d Armored Rifle Battalion, 48th Infantry, makes a final inspection of the honor guard I have trained and am about to take to the 7th Army Noncommissioned Officers Academy at Bad Tölz.
Smiles of relief from young second lieutenants who have just finished the final field exercise at the Ranger school mountain training camp in Dahlonega, Georgia. I’m in the back row just about under the helicopter mast.
MY LUCKIEST DAY
I met Alma Vivian Johnson on a blind date in the fall of 1961. She was twenty-four. This is her at age fourteen.
Alma and I were married on August 25, 1962, at the First Congregational Church in Birmingham, Alabama, where Alma grew up. My parents are to the left. Alma’s parents, Mildred and Robert “R. C.” Johnson, are to the right. R.C. has a resigned expression on his face: he’s not quite sure what his daughter has gotten into. He’d only met me thirty-six hours before the wedding.
A GROWING FAMILY, AN ABSENT FATHER
Our marriage was blessed with three children. Alma is with Mike, age five, and Linda, age three, in 1968, in Birmingham, Alabama. Alma sent this picture to me in Vietnam for Christmas. I stared at it for hours.
The growing Powell family in 1975, after Vietnam and another year I had spent away from them in Korea. From left to right, Annemarie, five, Linda, ten, and Mike, twelve.
ON PATROL IN VIETNAM
We take a break in the tropical jungle. I’m the big one with a bulging pack at left center. Directly in front of me is Captain Hieu, and in the immediate foreground is Lieutenant Sô. I lost track of them both for over thirty years, but they came back into my life.
A smashed Viet Cong bullet I’ve just pried out of an armored vest of our point man. It took persuasion to get the point squad to wear vests, but after this incident, I could do no wrong.
Treating a wounded Viet Cong cadre member we ambushed in the A Shau Valley. He and his team were armed, carrying documents and heading to a meeting in one of the villages along the coastal plain.
Standing outside my hootch at A Shau in 1963. This is my showoff uniform. On patrol, the white name tag disappeared, as did the silver insignia. The hand grenade was carried much more carefully and not just tucked in my belt by its handle.
SURVIVING A HELICOPTER CRASH IN THE JUNGLE
Minutes after General Gettys’s helicopter crashed in Vietnam in 1968. The injured have been removed and the GIs are bending wreckage out of the way to allow rescue helicopters to get closer and lower evacuation winches. I am the character with the bruised face in the right-hand corner, keeping an eye on the circling helos.
The general we pulled from the wreckage, my commander in the Americal Division, Major General Charles M. Gettys.
ON MY WAY TO A WHITE HOUSE FELLOWSHIP
After finishing graduate school at The George Washington University in 1971, I served on the Army staff for a year before being selected for a White House Fellowship. On my last day on the Army staff, I was presented a Legion of Merit by my boss, Major General Herbert McChrystal. Alma is holding Annemarie, while Mike and Linda look on with reasonable interest.
I met President Nixon for the first time in the fall of 1972, after my selection to be a White House Fellow.
This was about as close to the White House as I got when I was a White House Fellow in 1972 and 1973. The Fellowship was a unique program, which gave me invaluable insight into the workings of Washington.
My White House Fellows class on the South Lawn of the White House in 1972. I am at the right, rear. The director of the program, Lieutenant Colonel Bernard Loeffke, is kneeling at the left. Kneeling second from the right is Jim Bostic, who became the younger brother I always wanted. All my classmates went on from this program to distinguished careers.
I WAS PROUD OF MY BATTALION IN KOREA
“My God, will you look at these winners!” says my
division commander in Korea, the legendary Major General Henry E. Emerson, as we move down the line presenting Expert Infantryman Badges to men in my battalion in 1974.
With several of my company commanders in Korea. Left to right: Captains Baird and Behrens, and First Lieutenant Garnett.
“GUNFIGHTER” EMERSON
Hank Emerson as a lieutenant general in 1977 while commanding XVIII Airborne Corps. He was know affectionately as “The Gunfighter,” as reflected in his preference for a six-shooter rather than a regulation .45 caliber pistol.
In the field in Korea as commander of the 1st Battalion, 32d Infantry, “The Queen’s Own Buccaneers,” in 1974.
COMMANDING THE 2D BRIGADE, 101ST AIRBORNE
Visiting soldiers of my brigade in field training at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
My official file photo as a colonel in the 101st Airborne. I looked like this and was no doubt an odd sight when I went to Washington in February 1977 to be interviewed by Zbigniew Brzezinski for a job on the National Security Council staff of the new Carter administration.
Greeting Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld when he visited Fort Campbell in 1976. I could never quite get my beret to look stylish.
In the field at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, in the summer of 1976, training the 39th Infantry Brigade of the Arkansas National Guard. The brigade commander, Brigadier General Harold Gwatney, is on the left. General Bernard Rogers, the commander of Forces Command, is on the right. Rogers went on to become the Army Chief of Staff.
ON THE RUN AT FORT CARSON, COLORADO
At Fort Carson, Colorado, 1982. The command group of the 4th Infantry Division (mechanized) leads the division in an annual organization day run. As a brigadier general, I am running behind the division commander, Major General John W. Hudachek. Hudachek found my performance wanting and said so in an efficiency report that could have ended my career. Behind me is Colonel William Flynn, division chief of staff. To my left is Brigadier General Rock Negris, my fellow assistant division commander. Behind Negris is Colonel Bob Dupont, the deputy post commander.
FROM THE FIELD TO THE WASHINGTON BELTWAY
Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, in 1984, presents President Reagan with a mounted AK-47 rifle that was captured during the 1983 Grenada invasion. From left: Vice President George Bush; me, military assistant to Secretary Weinberger; Secretary Weinberger; General Jack Vessey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; William Howard Taft IV, deputy secretary of defense; and President Reagan. Within five years I would become National Security Advisor for President Reagan and then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for President Bush.
Preface
I have had a great life, and this is the story so far.
I was not planning to write an autobiography and had even helped other authors write biographies about me. In my final months as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, however, I began to change my mind. The commercial prospects could not be ignored. Friends encouraged me to do it, but still I hesitated until one particularly close friend said, “Oh, stop being afraid, Colin. You owe it to your grandchildren, and you have a story to tell. Do it!” And so I have.
This is a personal memoir. It is not a definitive history of the major events in which I was privileged to take part. An autobiography is much too self-serving for that purpose. I hope the book will prove useful to historians of our times; but I wrote it principally to share my story with my fellow Americans.
I faced the problem all authors have to contend with, that of selection. There is neither time nor space to tell everything. I was determined to produce a single volume of reasonable length, and avoid a “doorstopper” of the kind I was warned about by one of my media friends: “For heaven’s sake, don’t write another of those long, bloody ‘And then I had lunch with …’ books.”
Mine is the story of a black kid of no early promise from an immigrant family of limited means who was raised in the South Bronx and somehow rose to become the National Security Advisor to the President of the United States and then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is a story of hard work and good luck, of occasional rough times, but mostly good times. 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 my benefiting those who will follow. It is a story of faith—faith in myself, and faith in America. Above all, it’s a love story: love of family, of friends, of the Army, and of my country. It is a story that could only have happened in America.
Contents
Preface
Part One: The Early Years
1. Luther and Arie’s Son
2. A Soldier’s Life for Me
3. Courting Alma
Part Two: Soldiering
4. “It’ll Take Half a Million Men to Succeed”
5. Coming Home
6. Back to Vietnam
7. White House Fellow
8. “Go, Gunfighter, Go!”
9. The Graduate School of War
Part Three: The Washington Years
10. In the Carter Defense Department
11. The Reaganites—and a Close Call
12. The Phone Never Stops Ringing
13. “Frank, You’re Gonna Ruin My Career”
14. National Security Advisor to the President
Part Four: The Chairmanship
15. One Last Command
16. “Mr. Chairman, We’ve Got a Problem”
17. When You’ve Lost Your Best Enemy
18. A Line in the Sand
19. Every War Must End
20. Change of Command
21. Mustering Out
22. A Farewell to Arms
Colin Powell’s Rules
Acknowledgments
Part One
THE EARLY YEARS
One
Luther and Arie’s Son
I USUALLY TRUST MY INSTINCTS. THIS TIME I DID NOT, WHICH ALMOST proved fatal. The day was pure Jamaica in February, the sun brilliant overhead, the air soft with only the hint of an afternoon thundershower. Perfect flying weather, as we boarded the UH-1 helicopter. My wife, Alma, and I were visiting the island of my parents’ birth at the invitation of Prime Minister Michael Manley. Manley had been after me for a year, ever since the Gulf War. “Get some rest, dear boy,” he had said in that compelling lilt the last time he had called. “Come home, if only for a few days. Stay at our government guesthouse.” This time I accepted with pleasure.
Even with Desert Storm behind us, the pressure on me as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had been relentless over the past year. With the Cold War fast fading, we were trying to rethink and reshape America’s defenses. The world had altered so radically that we were presently organizing a relief airlift to help feed the Russians. We had a festering situation at our base at Guantanamo in Cuba, with Haitian migrants piling up under conditions starting to resemble a concentration camp. And a defeated but incorrigible Saddam Hussein was trying to thwart UN inspectors’ efforts to put him out of the nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons business. I welcomed a chance to get out of cold, gray Washington and into the island sun for a few days. And, on the way down, I could stop and check out conditions at Guantanamo.
We arrived in Jamaica the afternoon of February 13, 1992, and were swept up in a whirlwind of West Indian hospitality. The next morning, Alma and I were whisked off to the Ward Theatre, where the mayor of Kingston, Marie Atkins, presented me with the keys to the city. “I’m American-born, Madame Mayor,” I said in my response, “but you’ve handed me the keys to my second home.” I recalled boyhood memories, listening to calypso melodies like “Fan Me, Soja Man,” hearing the pidgin-English poetry of Louise Bennett, and feasting on plantain, roast goat, and rice and peas. After my speech, Councillor Ezra Cole observed: “Only in Jamaica do we call it rice and peas. Everywhere else in the Caribbean, they have it backward, peas and rice. General Powell is a true Jamaican.”
/> We next visited the Jamaica Defence Force headquarters at nearby Up Park Camp, where the chief of the JDF, Commodore Peter Brady, took me on a tour and had his troops go through their paces. The drill was carried off with great skill and flair. Much foot stomping, smart saluting, slapping of sides, and shouting of “Suh!” this and “Suh!” that. All very British and very professional.
After lunch, we boarded a Jamaica Defence Force helicopter for a quick hop across the bay to Manley International Airport. There we were to transfer to an American Blackhawk helo to visit U.S. units on temporary duty in Jamaica. The original plan had been for us to fly the Blackhawk all the way, but our hosts wanted us to use the U.S.-built Jamaican helo to leave their headquarters, and I could not easily reject their gesture of pride, though my antennae quivered. Kingston faded behind us as the helicopter rose, leveling off at about fifteen hundred feet. Alma smiled at me; it had been a lovely day. I was gazing out at the soothing aquamarine of the Caribbean when I heard a sudden sharp crrraack. Alma looked at me, puzzled.
I knew instantly that we were in trouble. The helicopter’s transmission had seized. The aircraft began to sway wildly. We were dropping into the bay. I had already experienced one helo crash in Vietnam. I knew that if the UH-1 struck water, it would probably flip, and the blades would snap off and cut the air like shrapnel. And with the doors open, the aircraft would sink like a stone. What flashed through my brain was, we have three children and their mother and father were about to die.
My American Journey Page 1