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Paper Abstract: Life & military career of first black Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff. Paper Introduction: INTRODUCTION General Colin Powell was the first black officer to become the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This accomplishment came after a long history of discrimination and abuse of blacks in the U.S. military, extending even into the early part of Powell's career in the army. Powell worked his way up though the system to become a general, but it was his performance and prominence during the Desert Storm situation that catapulted him to national prominence as the news media centered on this leader, the highest-ranking African-American in the history of the country. Powell's story is a truly American version of success. He was born of immigrant parents form Jamaica and grew up in moderately poor circumstances. His education was in average public schools. He succeeded through his own hard work, though, Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Powell.Powell had most of the power to wage the war, having been given thisauthority by President Bush. News & World Report (March 16, 1998), 76-78.Randolph, Laura B. We all thought it made sense. Schwarzkopf, his knees shaking with anxiety, walked into a minefield to aid injured GIs as mines exploded around him. Wars like that in Vietnam were being fought assurrogate wars. Meanwhile, alma Powell was holed up in a city being torn apart by racial violence--"I probably saw more action than he did," she says (Means 119). He notes that at thetime, We all were very supportive of it. CONCLUSION Since his retirement, Powell has been searching for a way to turn hissupercelebrity into something substantial. PARENTS As noted, colin Powell was the son of jamaican immigrants and wasraised in the Bronx. Before he left, the two moved to Fort Bragg, North Carolina,while Powell took a six-week training course at the Army's Special WarfareCenter. He was now an instructor of the men comingout of Officer Candidate School (Hughes 83-85). Fine, 1992.Newhouse, John. INTRODUCTION General Colin Powell was the first black officer to become thechairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He then moved to anothertextile firm doing the same sort of work. In the days before the fighting actually began, in the periodwhen the Allied troops were merely standing in the desert waiting, therewas concern as to how American troops would react to being given commandorders by British or French officers, and it was up to Schwarzkopf to seethat this did not become a problem (Harbrecht, Borrus, and Janetski 35-36). the neighborhood is about three percent Caucasian, seventy-five percent Hispanic, and the rest African-American. He was further the youngest chairman of the Joint Chiefs ofstaff, being appointed to the post when he was only 52. He worked closely with hisMontagnard counterpart, Captain Hieu, and he assumed years later that Hieuhad been captured or killed. At times, Luther would also sellclothing out of his apartment to make more money. In the field, though, there was an international command whichreported to Schwarzkopf, with the British, French, and Saudis prominentlyrepresented. The Powells moved to Hunts Point in the Bronx, then a largely Jewishneighborhood. Theleadership of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was under General Colin L. . He was a graduate of the City College of New York andnot West Point, as would have been the normal route for one who would riseso high in the military establishment. involvement increased and American troops were committed to thesupport of South Vietnam. Both he andGeneral Schwarzkopf would later come to prominence in the Gulf War, andboth were in Vietnam where they discovered a different sort of fighting: Powell, his ankle broken in a helicopter crash, dragged his commanding officer to safety. What catapulted himbeyond the Washington-insider status he achieved over the next eleven yearsor so was the Gulf War. . Powell was the first black American to serve in sensitiveand key positions of government, and he did so through the administrationsof five presidents. "My American Journey." Current (Sept 1998), 37-4 .Harbrecht, Douglas, Amy Borrus, Bill Janetski. Colin Powell married his wife, Alma, in 1962 before his first tour invietnam. Powell wouldstate in an interview, My early memories are of watching her on Thursday night sitting at the kitchen table, bundling up all these little tags, and putting rubber bands around them. He was the first black appointed to the post ofnational security advisor to the White House. It was also a safe place to live and work in the era justafter World War II. I thought it was right, and I still think now it was right at the time (Hughes 69).Powell served for several months in the A Shau Valley as senior battalionadvisor to a unit of South vietnamese watching the border of Laos along theHo Chi Minh Trail. Anexamination of Powell's life suggests how he achieved his success and whathe had to overcome to do it. This accomplishment came after along history of discrimination and abuse of blacks in the U.S. Colin Powell: A Man of Quality. . Eisenhower thought he could bring about an end tothe problem without direct troop involvement, but the policy did not work: Although it was not yet recognized in Washington, the Eisenhower administration's commitment to making South Vietnam another "showcase" of communist containment was already crumbling. She'd take them in the next morning, down to the garment district, and present them as evidence of what she had done the previous week (Means 28-29).Powell says that his family had a subtle "joke" that was ongoing and thathad his father as management and his mother as labor because of theirrespective jobs. he would do anything to help them (Means 3 ). Powell served two combat tours inVietnam and advanced in rank. Luther Powell was Colin's father and likely came from a long lineageof small farmers in Jamaica. The Powells had been among the firstblacks to move out of harlem and into Hunts Point, and now they moved alongwith their Jewish neighbors and so got out of the South Bronx before thatregion decayed entirely: Today . once in New York, Luther became a shippingclerk for a firm in the garment district of Manhattan, where he worked for23 years until the firm went out of business. Despite its best intentions, America had become inextricably associated with a repressive government presided over by an imperial tyrant who had little if any contact with his own people (Chafe 263). Both believed they were doing God's work and became increasingly distressed by the war's toll on morale and morality. . Much of her work waspiecework at that time under which she did the work, cut off the tag on thegarment, and used the tag as a receipt for the work done. In December of that year, he left for Southeast Asia while hiswife stayed with her parents in Birmingham: in effect, Colin and alma Powell had gone to the separate fronts of the two wars America would wage in the 196 s. Powell has also not been at all reticent about spreading his ownmessage for success to others. The African-American Soldier. he notes that the armytoday demands a diploma because the person who earned it is "somebody whowill stick to the task given" (Means 35). War and Peace in the Nuclear Age. Powell saw back-scratching careerists hand out medals for routine work. Schwarzkopf felt shame when, under protest, he tallied "body counts" he knew to be inflated. The Army paid for his graduate work to get a master's degree inbusiness administration at George Washington University, after which he wastransferred to the Pentagon for a year in the Planning and ProgrammingAnalysis Directorate (Hughes 87-94). In truth, America had been involved in Vietnam for manyyears before the issue became the catalyst for social protest and politicalreprisals in the U.S., and for much of that time the public ignored whatwas taking place. that's how she got paid. It was his appointment as national security advisor in 1973 thatstarted him on the road to national recognition. he was a student once moreat Fort Benning between August 1964 and May 1965 in the Infantry AdvancedCourse, after which he was assigned another year as a test officer for theSupporting Weapons Division. He succeededthrough his own hard work, though, to overcome whatever limitations thisplaced on him. We got a briefing on the way in; i'd gone to school at Frost Bragg for six weeks and hear all about counterinsurgency . Powell returned and moved to Columbus, Georgia with his wife andchild. New York: Vintage books, 1988."Powell & Schwarzkopf: The Diplomatists." U.S. Vietnam was asituation that seemed to develop slowly in the consciousness of theAmerican public until much of the country seemed to discover rathersuddenly that the nation was enmeshed in a growing war to which thereseemed no end. Powell has stated that the ambiguities of the war are something hehas considered in the years since, but at the time he knew nothing of thisand was only doing his patriotic duty as he saw it. "Colin Powell's Challenge to Black America: 'Reach Back and Reach Down.'" Ebony (June 1997), 2 -22."Time's 25 Most Influential Americans." Time (April 21, 1997), 4 -61.----------------------- 11 Powell was leading a combat unit near the North Vietnamese border when his son was born. This is also a lesson he learnedfrom his parents. "Managing the War." Business Week (February 4, 1991), 34-37.Hughes, Libby. He has rejected offers to runbig companies and foundations and instead has become general chairman ofthe Presidents' Summit for America's Future, a program that aims to boostthe voluntarism in America today (Randolph 2 ). Recent polls suggest thatPowell is the favorite of Republicans for the White House in 2 and wouldbeat Al Gore, the Democrats' toughest contender, 49 percent to 35 percent,though Powell has given little indication that he intends to run or eventhat he is a Republican: It seems only to enhance his stature that the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff leads a fairly private life and maintains a skillful neutrality about someday seeking the highest office to which mere politicians are hormonally drawn ("Time's 25 most influential Americans" 58).Powell has been promoting programs that interest him and speaking to youngpeople across the country. InJuly 1969, Powell received the legion of merit and returned to the UnitedStates. Powell helped getthe man into the United States (Hughes 71-72). MILITARY CAREER The United States became involved in the situation in Vietnam duringthe Eisenhower Administration, but it was during the Kennedy Administrationthat U.S. Like many soldiers at war, he wouldn't find out he was a father until more than two weeks after the fact. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.Desch, Michael C. By the time Luther died of cancer in 1978, his son was a full colonelin the United States Army, and within a year he would be a General. All Allied commanders in the Gulfreported directly to General Schwarzkopf, commander-in-chief of DesertStorm. He was the first ReserveOfficers' Training Corps (ROTC) officer named to the chairmanship of theJoint chiefs. President Bush vowed that the Gulf War wouldnot be another Vietnam, and Powell was charged with seeing to it that thiswas maintained as the prime objective. Powell by now also had a small daughter, and his family was inthe United States where opposition to the war was increasing. Colin Powell. Powell had discovered the war's loopy logic early ("Powell & Schwarzkopf: The Diplomatists" 76). administrations as they fought to keep each perceived domino fromfalling under the control of the communists, just as the Soviets fought tobring more and more territory under communist control. His wife, Maud, worked indifferent garment district forms as a seamstress. In 1968 after further training, Powell returned to Vietnam, but itwas now a full-scale war in which Americans were losing their lives in highnumbers. Nuclear war between the principals was unthinkable, andthis mean that surrogate wars were fought in which second partiessubstituted for the superpowers. In some ways, in spite of the fact that he remained in the same jobwhile other cousins went on to more prestigious and better-paying jobs,Luther Powell remained a commanding figure in the extended family, as Colinnotes: He was only about five-three or five-four, a little man, but he was a patriarch because of his wisdom, because of his willingness to help anybody who needed help. He rose to high prominence in the military buthas himself deplored the fact that the only way most blacks were able torise in his generation was in the military and he seeks now to expandopportunity in other areas. In1991, Colin returned to the South Bronx as one of the most celebratedmilitary leaders in modern history, and it was then he visited Morris highSchool and urged the students to stay in class. Parsippany, New Jersy: Dillon Press, 1996.Lanning, Michael Lee. military,extending even into the early part of Powell's career in the army. But the percentages tell only a minor part of the story, As Hunts Point changed complexion, its economic base crumbled, and with that came a catalogue of nearly every ill that can befall an urban area, nearly all of them magnified to the breaking point (Means 32). Within a decade, though, the Jewish nature of the areawould disappear as people made more money and moved on to other areas.This had been a fringe and nearly rural community, and now it found itselfa decaying part of the inner city. Powell hascontinued delivering this and related messages since he retired to privatelife--private in that he is no longer part of the government, but public inthat he remains in the public eye and uses this fact to promote worthycauses to benefit the poor and to advance education among young people. The Unfinished Journey. American involvement started with full awareness on thepart of the American government that, as Eisenhower said, it would be agreat tragedy for the United States to become involved in an all-out landwar in Asia (Chafe 259). He was not accustomed to the sort of racial prejudice heencountered in the South, though his wife was. he saw few Americans in the remote northern area andworked with many Montagnards, a loyal group of mountain people trained bythe Green Berets in counterintelligence. Operation Desert Storm was viewed as one of thesignal successes of the Bush Administration. Works CitedChafe, William H. Powell says his parents were hard-working people andreligious people, and a friend of the family stated, "they made sure Colingot his religious education" (Means 29). In fact, he was imprisoned by the NorthVietnamese for 13 years and was released only in 1988. He was born ofimmigrant parents form Jamaica and grew up in moderately poorcircumstances. When he was still Chairman of the JointChiefs of Staff in the Pentagon in 1992, he returned to Morris High Schoolin the South Bronx, where he was once a student, and told the students toget their high school diplomas as a minimum to achieving anything in life:"Without it, you are on your way to nowhere" (Hughes 11). In 1987, he accepted Ronald Reagan'sappointment of him as national security adviser, at which time newspapercolumnist Carl Rowan wrote, To understand the significance of Powell's elevation to this extremely difficult and demanding post, you must realize that only a generation ago it was an unwritten rule that in the foreign affairs field, blacks could serve only as ambassador to Liberia and minister to the Canary Islands (Lanning 283). Powell has since suggested that the military was defeated in Vietnam andnear to implosion in Europe and Korea but that it came out of its post-Vietnam fugue after that period bacuse of strong leadership (Desch 37). Powellworked his way up though the system to become a general, but it was hisperformance and prominence during the Desert Storm situation thatcatapulted him to national prominence as the news media centered on thisleader, the highest-ranking African-American in the history of the country. New York: Donald I. His education was in average public schools. President Eisenhower was the first toformulate the "falling domino" theory of how communism might spread fromone country to another (Newhouse 1 ), and this view was repeated by laterU.S. He loved people. The war had its critics, butin general it was seen as (and touted as by the Bush Administration) anecessary action, a well-coordinated military operation, and an instance ofAmerican success after many years of failures, or at best inaction. He achieved all ofthese first because of "his distinguishing qualities of character, coupledwith an abundance of skills for solving problems" (Hughes 1 ). Powell's story is a truly American version of success. Secaucus, New Jersey: Birch Lane, 1997.Means, Howard. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.