My American Journey
Page 76
Ironically, for all the present sensitivity over correctness, we seem to have lost our sense of shame as a society. Nothing seems to embarrass us; nothing shocks us anymore. Spend time switching channels on daytime television and you will find a parade of talk shows serving up dysfunctional people whose morally vacant behavior offers the worst possible models for others. None of this mass voyeurism is more offensive to me than the use of black “guests” by talk-show producers, reinforcing the most demeaning racial stereotypes. At least in the old days of Amos ’n’ Andy, Amos was happily married and hardworking, and he and his wife together were raising sweet little Arabella, who said her prayers every night.
We say we are appalled by the rise of sexually transmitted disease, by the wave of teenage pregnancies, by violent crime. Yet we drench ourselves in depictions of explicit sex and crime on television, in movies, and in pop music. Language that I heard—and used—only on all-male Army posts is now scripted into the mouths of women, even children.
A sense of shame is not a bad moral compass. I remember how easy it was for my mother to snap me back into line with a simple rebuke: “I’m ashamed of you. You embarrassed the family.” I would have preferred a beating to hearing those words. I wonder where our national sense of shame has gone.
As I travel around the country, I invite questions from my audiences, which range from trade associations to motivational seminars, from prison inmates to the youngsters at my pride and joy, the Colin L. Powell Elementary School in Woodlands, Texas. What people ask gives me a good idea of what is on America’s mind. To my surprise, they seldom mention the headline issues—abortion, gun control, welfare, affirmative action, and the like. Their questions more often express a yearning. They seem to be searching for a guiding star that we have lost sight of. They see good order breaking down. They see violence so commonplace that it has lost the power to shock. They see a judicial system that threatens to become a form of public entertainment, losing its majesty and authority.
American voters channel-surfed right past a Republican President in 1992 and a Democratic Congress in 1994, looking, in my judgment, not so much for a different party but for a different spirit in the land, something better. How do we find our way again? How do we reestablish moral standards? How do we end the ethnic fragmentation that is making us an increasingly hyphenated people? How do we restore a sense of family to our national life? On the speech circuit, I tell a story that goes to the heart of America’s longing. The ABC correspondent Sam Donaldson was interviewing a young African-American soldier in a tank platoon on the eve of battle in Desert Storm. Donaldson asked, “How do you think the battle will go? Are you afraid?”
“We’ll do okay. We’re well trained. And I’m not afraid,” the GI answered, gesturing toward his buddies around him. “I’m not afraid because I’m with my family.”
The other soldiers shouted, “Tell him again. He didn’t hear you.”
The soldier repeated: “This is my family and we’ll take care of each other.”
That story never fails to touch me or the audience. It is a metaphor for what we have to do as a nation. We have to start thinking of America as a family. We have to stop screeching at each other, stop hurting each other, and instead start caring for, sacrificing for, and sharing with each other. We have to stop constantly criticizing, which is the way of the malcontent, and instead get back to the can-do attitude that made America. We have to keep trying, and risk failing, in order to solve this country’s problems. We cannot move forward if cynics and critics swoop down and pick apart anything that goes wrong to a point where we lose sight of what is right, decent, and uniquely good about America.
Like that soldier in Desert Storm, we have to achieve the blessings of family; and we should begin with the restoration of real families. We need to restore the social model of married parents bringing into the world a desired child, a child to be loved and nurtured, to be taught a sense of right and wrong, to be educated to his or her maximum potential in a society that provides opportunities for work and a fulfilling life. Simple to say; difficult to achieve; yet the ideal toward which we must never stop striving.
My travels since leaving the Army two years ago have deepened my love for our country and our people. It is a love full of pride for our virtues and with patience for our failings. We are a fractious nation, always searching, always dissatisfied, yet always hopeful. We have an infinite capacity to rejuvenate ourselves. We are self-correcting. And we are capable of caring about each other. In this season of our discontent, I find it heartening to look back. Remember during the sixties and seventies when people wondered how we could survive the assassinations of John, Martin, and Bobby, and a war that tore us apart, riots in front of the White House, and the resignations in disgrace of a Vice President and a President? Some counted us out, another once great empire in terminal decline. But we came roaring back, while other empires fell instead. We will prevail over our present trials. We will come through because our founders bequeathed us a political system of genius, a system flexible enough for all ages and inspiring noble aspirations for all time. We will continue to flourish because our diverse American society has the strength, hardiness, and resilience of the hybrid plant we are. We will make it because we know we are blessed, and we will not throw away God’s gift to us.
Jefferson once wrote, “There is a debt of service due from every man to his country, proportioned to the bounties which nature and fortune have measured to him.” As one who has received so much from his country, I feel that debt heavily, and I can never be entirely free of it. My responsibility, our responsibility as lucky Americans, is to try to give back to this country as much as it has given to us, as we continue our American journey together.
Colin Powell’s Rules
It ain’t as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning.
Get mad, then get over it.
Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.
It can be done!
Be careful what you choose. You may get it.
Don’t let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision.
You can’t make someone else’s choices. You shouldn’t let someone else make yours.
Check small things.
Share credit.
Remain calm. Be kind.
Have a vision. Be demanding.
Don’t take counsel of your fears or naysayers.
Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.
Acknowledgments
I thank first of all my literary agent, Marvin Josephson, for gently guiding me to decide to write this book. Without Marvin’s early encouragement and patient explanations of what I was getting myself into, the memoir might have remained merely a passing idea. During the writing, Marvin continued to be a source of inspiration and constructive criticism, for which I will be forever grateful.
Once the decision to write the book was made, I had to find a collaborator. The search, in the beginning, did not go well. Then, just the day before my retirement, into my office strode Joseph E. Persico, tall, white-haired, a few years older than me, carrying an ancient briefcase, dressed like a rumpled, tweedy professor, his glasses hanging from a cord around his neck. As he crossed the room, he took it all in before turning to me for a handshake. He did not seem to be the least but impressed by his first visit to the Pentagon and the office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or by me. I had found my collaborator. Joe is a master of the science and art of writing. He has kept me on course for the past two years. More than a collaborator, he has been my mentor, nag, minister, and above all, my partner and friend. My American Journey is my story, but our book. I could not have carried out this project without Joe. With him came most of the Persico family. Sylvia, Joe’s wife, edited, made useful suggestions, typed, and performed countless other services, most important her loving support of Joe. Vanya Perez, Joe’s eldest daughter, was our invaluable transcriber and main
typist. The manuscript was finished, thank heaven, days before Vanya’s second child was born. I deeply appreciate the contribution of both these women to the work.
My editor and publisher, Harold Evans, president of the Random House Trade Group, is the best in the business. I only doubted Harry once, and that was when he said that he could edit the whole manuscript on a laptop computer while sitting on a beach in Jamaica. He did, and brilliantly, I might add. Alberto Vitale, president of Random House, and S. I. Newhouse, president of Newhouse Publications, were both unstinting in their support of this project. The manuscript benefited from a scrupulous copyediting by Edward Johnson.
Colonel (Ret.) Bill Smullen, my assistant and close friend, worked on every aspect of the book, particularly heading the research operation while also running my office, which gave me the freedom to devote myself to writing. For the past six years, Bill has been alongside me as my confidant and protector. I will never be able to thank him enough. Bill and I are both indispensably aided by the other member of my staff, Peggy Cifrino.
Several friends and members of my family read the manuscript in whole or in part, and I have profited from their suggestions. Norma Leftwich gave it a particularly sensitive reading, and others whose comments proved especially valuable include Richard Armitage, Marybel Batjer, Marilyn and Norman Berns, Kenneth Duberstein, Admiral David Jeremiah, Alton Sheek, Larry Wilkerson, my son, Michael, my daughters, Linda and Annemarie, and my wife, Alma. During the course of writing the book, Alma continued as well to provide what she had given me throughout our marriage, an anchorage of good sense, good judgment, and good advice.
Numerous people helped us with the research. Among them I particularly thank Mike Andricos, Larry Bird, Hugh Howard, Tina Lavato, Susan Lemke, and Christina Mazzola.
We benefited from the expertise of numerous people in the Department of Defense. Among them are Joan Asboth, Dr. Donald Baucom, Sheryl Blankenship, Denise Brown, Colonel Conrad Busch, Barbara Callahan, Major General Richard Chilcoat, Linda Clark, Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Coulson, Teresa Crowley, Patricia Darnell, Major Joe Davis, Commander Alan Dooley, Lieutenant Colonel Nino Fabiano, Gene Fredrickson, Lieutenant Colonel James Gleisberg, Dr. Alfred Goldberg, Major General Gregory Govan, Colonel Larry Gragg, Colonel Kevin Hanretta, Gerri Harcarik, Colonel Marvin Harris, Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Hart, Lieutenant Megan Hayes, Nancy Hughes, Colonel Larry Icenogle, Lorna Jaffe, Rear Admiral Gregory Johnson, Major General John Jumper, liana Kass, Dr. Susan Koch, Shari Lawrence, Dr. John Leland, Don Lenker, Colonel H. T. Linke, Captain Matt Margotta, Bruce Menning, Franklin Miller, William Ormsbee, Harvey Perritt, Carolyn Piper, Peter Probst, Michael Rodgers, Betty Skinner, Lieutenant Colonel Mary Lou Smullen, Colonel James Terry, Patricia Tugwell, Dr. Todd White, Theodore Wise, and Janet Wray.
Others who helped with the research and related tasks included Lewis Brodsky, Michael Burch, John Chapla, Dennis Daellenbach, Charles DeCicco, Donna Dillon, Frank Donatelli, Amanda Downes, Andrew Duncan, Ralph Faust, Brigadier General Lou Hennies, Tammy Kupperman, James Manley, James McGrath, Marilynn McLaren, Thomas M. Persico, Karen Pierce, Ed Rabel, Colonel Douglas Roach, Gresham Striegel, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Trotter, Colonel John Votaw, and Margrit Krewson at the Library of Congress.
Others who helped me in ways that only they know include Julius Becton, James Cannon, Sharon Krager, Camille Nowfel, Gus Pagonis, George Price, Willard Sink, Clyde Taylor, Ronald Tumelson, Harlan Ullman, and Karen Wall.
And then there are all the friends who touched my life in countless ways, to my benefit. Many are mentioned in the book, but far more could not be included without extending these pages endlessly. They know who they are, and what they did for me. And I thank them all.
About the Coauthor
JOSEPH E. PERSICO was born in Gloversville, New York, in 1930 and graduated from the State University of New York at Albany. He served as a lieutenant junior grade aboard a minesweeper during the Korean War, and later at Southern NATO headquarters in Naples. Subsequently he joined the U.S. Information Agency and was posted to Brazil, Argentina, and Washington. For eleven years he was chief speechwriter for New York Governor and later U.S. Vice President Nelson A. Rockefeller. His books are My Enemy My Brother: Men and Days of Gettysburg; Piercing the Reich: The Penetration of Nazi Germany by American Secret Agents During World War II; The Spiderweb, a novel; The Imperial Rockefeller, a biography of Nelson Rockefeller; Edward R. Murrow: An American Original; Casey: The Life and Secrets of William J. Casey from the OSS to the CIA; and Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial. Mr. Persico divides his time between homes in upstate New York and Mexico.
A Ballantine Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 1995 by Colin L. Powell
Afterword © 1996 by Colin L. Powell
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Originally published in slightly different form by Random House, Inc., in 1995.
Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2003091156
www.ballantinebooks.com
eISBN: 978-0-307-76368-6
This edition published by arrangement with Random House, Inc.
First Ballantine Books Revised Edition: February 2003
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