Colin Luther Powell

Colin Luther Powell was born in Harlem in 1937..Powell grew up in the South Bronx, where he graduated from high school without knowing what he would do with his life. He entered the City College of New York to study geology and it was there own that he found his calling when he joined the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC). He became commander the drill team and graduated in 1958 at the top of his ROTC class, with the rank of cadet colonel, the highest rank in the corps. He was put as a second lieutenant in the United States Army, and was one of the 16,000 military advisors dispatched to South Vietnam in 1962. In 1963, he was wounded by a booby trap while watching the Vietnamese border with Laos. He was awarded the Purple Heart, and later that year, the Bronze Star. He served a second tour of duty in Vietnam in 1968-69. During this second tour he was injured in a helicopter crash. Even though he had his own injuries, he managed to rescue his friends from the burning helicopter and was awarded the Soldier's Medal. In all, he has received 11 decorations, including the Legion of Merit. He earned an MBA at George Washington University in Washington, DC, and after being promoted to major, won a White House fellowship. He was assigned to the Office of Management and Budget during the time of President Nixon, and he made a lasting impression on the Director and Deputy Director of the Office: Casper Weinberger and Frank Carlucci. Both of these people were to call on him when they served as Secretary of Defense and National Security Advisor, respectively, under President Reagan. He was, now a Colonel, followed his term as White House Fellow with service as a battalion commander in Korea and with a staff job at the Pentagon. After study at the Army War College, he was promoted to Brigadier General and commanded a Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division. In the administration of President Carter, Powell was an assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense, and to the Secretary of Energy. He was promoted to Major General. Then he assisted Frank Carlucci at the Defense Department during the transition from the Carter to Reagan administrations. Powell was assistant commander and deputy commander of infantry divisions in Colorado and Kansas before he went back to Washington to become senior military assistant to Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger, who he assisted during the invasion of Grenada and the raid on Libya. He was called upon to testify before Congress in private session about the covert shipment of American arms to Iran; he was one of only five persons in the Pentagon who knew about the Germany, but was recalled to Washington to serve as deputy to Frank Carlucci, after Carlucci was appointed national security adviser in the wake of the Iranian arms scandal. A year later, Carlucci was appointed Secretary of Defense and Powell, now a Lieutenant General, became the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. In this capacity, he coordinated technical and policy advisers during President Reagan's summit meetings with Soviet President Gorbachev. He was the first African