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COLIN LUTHER POWELL

1 October 1989 - 30 September 1993

olin Luther Powell, the son of Jamaican immigrants, was born on

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5 April 1937 in the Harlem section of New York City. He grew up in the South Bronx, where he graduated from Morris High School. At sixteen he entered the City College of New York. Attracted by the panache of the Pershing Rifles drill team, he joined the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC). There he found a sense of direction. He became company commander of the Pershing Rifles, attained ROTC's highest rank of cadet colonel, and was named a "distinguished military graduate." When he graduated in 1958 with a bachelor of science in geology, Powell was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Regular Army.

During the next decade Powell mastered infantry tactics and unit leadership. After completing Infantry Officer Basic, Ranger, and Airborne schools, he joined the 3d Armored Division in West Germany as a platoon leader. He then transferred to Fort Devens, Massachusetts, to command a company of the 5th Infantry Division and in 1962 was promoted to captain.

From December 1962 to November 1963 Powell was assigned to Vietnam, where he served as an adviser to a South Vietnamese infantry battalion. Wounded during this tour, he received a Purple Heart. On his return, he completed the Infantry Officer Advanced Course at Fort Benning, Georgia; was promoted to major in 1966; and the following year became an instructor at the Infantry School. In 1968 he graduated from the Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, second in a class of 1,244.

General Colin L. Powell
United States Army

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In June 1968 Major Powell returned to Vietnam, serving first as a battalion executive officer and then as Assistant Chief of Staff, Operations (G-3), and later deputy G-3 with the 23d Infantry Division (Americal). During this tour he received the Soldier's Medal for repeatedly returning to a burning helicopter to rescue others despite being injured himself.

Powell spent 1969 to 1973 in Washington, DC. Promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1970, he received a master's in business administration from George Washington University in 1971. In 1971 and 1972 he worked as an operations research analyst in the Planning,

Programming and Analysis Directorate in the Office of the Assistant Vice Chief of Staff of the Army. Selected in 1972 as one of seventeen White House Fellows from among 1,500 applicants, he was assigned to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as Special Assistant to the Deputy Director.

Lieutenant Colonel Powell returned to a troop assignment in September 1973 as Commander of the 1st Battalion of the 32d Infantry, 2d Infantry Division, guarding the Demilitarized Zone in the Republic of Korea. His next assignment, from 1974 to 1975, was as an operations research systems analyst in

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Lieutenant Colonel Powell as a battalion commander in South Korea.

the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower and Reserve Affairs. During 1975 and 1976 he was a student at the National War College, Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, DC. Promoted to colonel in 1976, Powell assumed command of the 2d Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Kentucky, in April of that year.

Colonel Powell returned to the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) in July 1977 as Executive to the Special Assistant to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense. After promotion to brigadier general in 1979 he continued in OSD as Senior Military Assistant

to the Deputy Secretary until June 1981, when he became Assistant Division Commander for Operations of the 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized), Fort Carson, Colorado. In August 1982 General Powell became the Deputy Commanding General of the US Army Combined Arms Combat Development Activity, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

In July 1983 he returned to the Pentagon as Senior Military Assistant to Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. Promoted to major general the following month, Powell continued as Weinberger's assistant until June 1986, when he assumed command of V

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