Colin Powell died on October 18, 2021. He was 84 years old.
His family made sure within the first sentence announcing his death from complications from Covid-19 that he was “fully vaccinated” (whatever that means anymore). Like it mattered, but to those of us that knew of Colin Powell from his nearly 30 years in public service, we shouldn’t be surprised. Dutifully, if the federal government advised its citizens to vaccinate, Colin would have been the first in line to get the shot. This is not about the Covid shot; more so to demonstrate that Colin Powell believed in leadership by example. No fanfare, just rolling up your sleeves and setting an example. While there is many policy things where he and I would differ, I found no other officer in the last 60 years of US military history that better understood this simple concept of living a life well-lived, leading humbly, with dignity, and respect.
The son of Jamaican immigrants, Colin Luther Powell was born and raised in Harlem, NY in 1937. He attended City College of New York and earned a bachelor’s degree in Geology in 1958, before being commissioned as a 2nd Lt. in the same year. He began his career post Korea and Pre-Vietnam. He would be instrumental as an officer in Vietnam and in the post-Vietnam restructuring. He was alongside giants like Norman Schwarzkopf. Powell wasn’t particularly anything special. He was a guy who did his job, did it well, and simply looked for opportunities to serve. He had 13 famous rules for leadership that he carried with him throughout his career, no doubt developed over time as he lived, learned, and experienced. Just a simple plugging away a little at a time. A little here, a little there. And after about 35 years of that, Colin Powell quietly became the National Security Advisor, and then the first black Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. No fanfare, no rioting and looting. Colin Powell didn’t burn a Starbucks and steal some Nike’s from Footlocker. He just shut the fuck up and did his job.
Sometimes he fucked up. Sometimes he didn’t do well. He kept trying anyway. And when he got done being the nation’s highest ranking general officer, he turned around became its first black secretary of state. Again, no fanfare, just business. Humble, straightforward business.
Of course, in most people’s eyes, it was the lone event of the February 2003 speech to the United Nations where Colin Powell asserted, based on bad intel he was fed might I add, (by intel officers who later admitted to knowing it was false) that Iraq was sheltering and supporting the development of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Of course history never let him live down the fallacy of that claim; over the 20 year war, no weapons of mass destruction were ever found not only in Iraq nor Afghanistan, but neither in Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, or any of the other 30-odd shitholes we found ourselves in. Powell’s credibility took a major hit and I don’t know that it ever fully recovered. Many people blame him for us going to war in Iraq; what is now considered a fool’s errand. That’s easy to do with the perfect vision of hindsight. But to be fair? I don’t know anyone that wouldn’t have also done the same thing if they were in his position and given what he was given for information.
After leaving the post in 2005, Colin still stayed active as a servant to the nation when called upon in an ambassador setting. He mostly enjoyed a well earned retirement.
What set Colin Powell apart from so many of those in similar positions today was his humility. The man was famous for one of his rules of leadership, “don’t tie your ego so close to the position that when the position falls, your ego goes with it.” He embodied selfless service and humble leadership. For more than 40 years, he only asked what his country needed and did it. He did it well. His penultimate contribution to US Foreign Policy was as a General with the “Powell Doctrine.”
An 8 question test that must all be answered in the affirmative, the Powell Doctrine was designed in the run-up to the 1991 Desert Storm as a litmus test for whether military action is to be taken. These questions differ from today’s cohort of flag officers in that while these men are finding ways to keep us embroiled with the words progress and security, Powell’s questions were designed to keep us out of war in the first place, and so that if we should find ourselves unable to avoid it, that we end war quickly, and decisively. With men like that leading our military, no wonder Desert Storm took Iraq in less than 100 days.
I believe that even given the gravity of that fated decision to go to war in Iraq, that it is a mistake to assign to him all the blame for our involvement there (1) and to forget or negate every other good act the man did to serve the country (2). Powell was a mouthpiece; with Bush 43 in office, Dick Cheney’s Haliburton and the mil industrial complex ready to turn and spin dollars, it would not have mattered if it were him or not. If it weren’t him, it may as well have been someone else. Remember, he is only one man; it took an entire Congress to vote on giving the President war authorization act powers.
Conversely, he is the only public official to express regret for his part in our going to war. That carries some weight with me.
Powell’s other difference between him and his modern day peers is in the way he treated his subordinates. The man was someone you WANTED to serve with, who treated you with dignity and respect, who called you to ask about your children or wish your spouse a happy birthday. Conversely, the only time a soldier might get a call from his chain of command today would be to check his Covid shot validation.
Colin Powell understood and got leadership. He died a lifetime public servant. He was 84 years old and a good man. The world is better having had him in it.
redneckphilosopher 