Powell, Colin

Former secretary of state and retired four-star general Colin Luther Powell served in the U.S. armed forces and government over a 47-year career, from the eve of the Vietnam War to the post-9/11 invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Born in Harlem, New York, in 1937, Powell joined the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps in 1954 at City College of New York. A Distinguished Military Graduate, he was commissioned second lieutenant in 1958 and deployed in 1959 to West Germany. Stateside from 1960 to 1962, Powell married and was then deployed to Vietnam for the first of two tours (1962–1963, 1968–1969). In 1970 and 1971, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and earned a master’s in business administration at George Washington University. Powell made many political contacts ...