Colin Powell: The Son of Jamaican Immigrants Made Good
COLIN POWELL, the youngest-ever Army Chief of Staff and the first African-American Chief of Staff and U.S. Secretary of State, grew up in an apartment at 952 Kelly Street in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx. Both of his parents were Jamaican immigrants who worked in the garment district. Neither had finished high school. Their house was a rental.
The family was very close, with extended family nearby. Looking back, Colin felt something very special had happened in Jamaica. Somehow, the indigenous island culture had mixed with African, English and Scottish culture to produce traditions of storytelling, plantain and roast goat, calypso music and humor that were a very sturdy foundation for families without much money.
Colin’s father, Luther Theophilus Powell, was only 5'2", but dressed well, wore a fedora, was a big tipper and greeted people as he walked the neighborhood. One of nine children, he’d come to the United States on a banana boat and never spoke of his youth in Jamaica. He entertained at holiday time, and loved being a patriarch. He was the eternal optimist, loved his adopted country, adored his family and knew that things would only get better. He played the numbers, sure that someday he would hit.
Colin’s mother, Maud Ariel “Arie” Powell, was a worrier. She worried about the house being robbed. She worried that the bank was tricking them out of the interest payments it had promised to make on their savings accounts. “How do you know they won’t ‘tief’ me?” she would say, using the old Jamaican phrase.
One day, Colin was outside playing, got something in his eye, started crying and went inside. One of his aunts helped him wash out his eye. But as he was heading back outside, he overheard her remark that she was worried about a boy who cried so much. That stuck in his craw, the idea that others might not find him tough.
He loved baseball, but was a poor hitter. Once he was disturbed to notice that his father had come to watch a baseball game Colin was playing in, and in that game he was utterly unable to hit the ball. His father never mentioned it, but Colin squirmed at the memory. He was a huge Jackie Robinson fan. When Jackie came up with the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking the color line, Colin used to say ‘Oh, Lord, don’t let him strike out.’ The great fear was that Jackie would fail his test against Major Leaguers, and that would be a mark against all black ballplayers, against all black people.
But Colin never doubted his own human worth. It never occurred to him that the color of a person’s skin was a legitimate way to gauge their intelligence or decency. If other Americans felt this way, they were the ones with a problem, not him. Two of his best friends were of Lithuanian descent; another was Puerto Rican. As a boy, he was not an outstanding student, but he was confident and happy.
Hunts Point had once been largely Jewish and still had plenty of Jewish-owned stores in those days. Colin learned a little Yiddish while working in a neighborhood store, Sickser’s. His Jewish boss, Jay Sickser, used to advise him: “Gesund dein kepple.” (‘Keep a healthy head’ or ‘Keep your head on straight.’) He knew he was doing well at the store when Mr. Sickser took him aside and said ‘You got to understand, I got two daughters. I got a son-in-law. Don’t count too much on the store.’ It meant that his boss had considered making him a partner.
Powell went to City College, and though he was no great shakes there academically either, and had to switch from an Engineering major to Geology, for the rest of his life he felt a deep gratitude for City College. He believed that the best students there were every bit as bright as those in the Ivy League. Their families were poorer, and more likely to be immigrants. At City College, he did ROTC — and found he liked it. It was the only part of college he looked forward to. The uniform, the discipline, the idea of men working hard as a team was like athletics, but in ROTC his lack of hand-eye coordination didn’t matter. His height, his voice, his bearing and confidence were good.
Coming home to Hunt’s Point in 1954 and 1955, he could see the neighborhood was declining. There had always been robberies and switchblades and a few people smoking marijuana; now the muggings and burglaries were more frequent and people were carrying guns and smoking heroin. Wealthier, more stable families were leaving for the suburbs. Poorer families were moving in.
Luther and Arie Powell, always proud of their living standard, were determined to move to a nice suburb, too, but lacked the money. Luther insisted things would work out. He had dreamed of a number to play in the weekly numbers game. When the same number appeared on the hymn board in church, Luther and his sister Beryl splurged and bet $25 on the number. They “hit” and won $10,000, which a numbers runner brought them in tens and twenties, carried in brown paper bags. With that money as down payment, Luther and Arie bought a home at 183–68 Elmira Avenue in Hollis, Queens. The new house had fruit trees, a family room, a bar in the finished basement, and ivy growing on the walls. The Powells had arrived.
Colin entered the Army in 1958 as a second lieutenant because it offered him a good start in life. His parents expected him to leave the Army after a few years and return to New York and a civilian job. But he never did. His first Army officer training was at Fort Benning, Georgia. He had certain things drilled into him. “Take charge of your post and of all government property in view.” You have the right to use it, but also the duty to make sure it’s not misused. Never stand around, or your men will also. Move, act, do things. Never accept excuses. Always have with you a pen, a pad and a watch. Take care of your men. Never eat until your men have eaten. Most of all, execute the mission. Full execution of the mission comes before taking care of the men, or anything else.
Ranger training made basic training seem like a breeze. One memorable challenge in Ranger training was “The Slide of Life.” You had to climb 100 feet up a big tree, and grab a hook that slid down a cable from this tree to another huge tree on the far side of a river. Hurtling toward the other tree, you couldn’t let go until your instructor yelled “Drop!” You only got that permission 10 yards from the tree and then had a 12-foot drop into the river. It was scary as hell, but he did it and was proud that he had. He also rappelled off cliffs and jumped out of airplanes. The little boy who cried so easily had grown up.
One of the best, most demanding Ranger instructors was a black officer named Vernon Coffey. It was exhausting trying to win even the grudging satisfaction of Officer Coffey, but it was inspiring to see a black man with that authority. The tradition-bound Army was doing its best to be race-neutral. But then would come a day off and Colin would be walking around Columbus, Georgia, able to shop at a drugstore but not eat at its lunch counter; able to shop at a department store but not use its restroom; able to walk unmolested down the main street but not glance at a white woman. It was infuriating to be treated as a second-class citizen while he was serving his country but it made him more determined to do well, and show the racists how high he could rise.
His first foreign posting was in 1959 to Gelnhausen, Germany, 25 miles east of Frankfurt. Powell was a platoon leader, commanding 40 men. Things didn’t always go smoothly; once he rushed off in a jeep to help guard an atomic cannon, and realized he didn’t have his .45 pistol and didn’t know where it was. The captain he informed of this was not pleased. Another time, Powell had to remind his platoon sergeant that he couldn’t deal with a man captured after going AWOL by chaining him to the barracks radiator.
But he learned a lot about common soldiers, how they thought, how to impress them, how to inspire their best effort. The most important lesson he learned is that enlisted men really do want to execute the mission. There will be plenty of grumbling and griping along the way but if the mission is achieved, all that will be forgotten. The converse was true, too. A leader could coddle his troops, help them avoid hard work and be thanked by his men — but if the mission failed, those same men would be unhappy.
He was also disturbed by a certain flabby kind of thinking among the officers, an assumption that things could be fudged around the edges. If the higher-ups really wanted certain results, then you pretend those results have been obtained. Maybe someday they would be.
At the end of 1960, homesick, he arranged to transfer back to Fort Devens., Massachusetts. Soon after, on a blind date, he met Miss Alma Johnson. She was a light-skinned young African-American woman, with a beautiful face and a lovely figure. She was from a fine, educated family in Birmingham, Alabama, had a soft southern voice, was kind and a great cook. She was also ambitious and smart, and was studying audiology, the science of hearing. Her father was a highly respected high school principal.
Colin had been skittish about the blind date — he’d only gone on it as a favor to a buddy. But, suddenly, he was crazy about this Alma Johnson. She was the first woman he’d dated who seemed capable of being a friend as well as a lover. He brought her to New York, and introduced her around at a family party. The Powell family were skeptical of this smart, beautiful, interesting, kind woman. After all, Alma was not Jamaican, not from anywhere in the West Indies, nor from New York. What kind of girlfriend was this for Colin, who was doing so well in the Army? The noisy, nosy style of his extended family embarrassed Colin a little as he saw his raucous relatives through Alma’s refined eyes. But he figured, ‘She’s got to meet them sooner or later.’
In August 1962, at Fort Devens, Colin got some very good news about his career. He was getting promoted to captain, being sent to Fort Bragg, North Carolina for special training, then being sent to Vietnam as an “advisor, “ the polite word for a battalion commander of Vietnamese troops. Vietnam was one of the world’s hot spots, and was known to be important to President Kennedy. Only real comers in the Army got sent there. It meant that Captain Powell’s Army future was bright.
Unless, of course, he was killed or wounded in Vietnam. When he shared his news with Alma Johnson, he was frustrated and hurt that she was not impressed. Didn’t she understand how few Army officers got this kind of assignment? He drove to Boston to talk to her about it. How long will you be in Vietnam? she asked. I don’t know, he had to reply. At least a year. He added that he hoped she would write to him; he would treasure her letters.
‘I’m not going to write to you,’ she replied. She was almost 25 and she told him in no uncertain terms that she had options. She wasn’t going to sit around playing pen pal to a soldier who might be killed and had no idea when he was coming home. He had not expected to marry anyone for some time; the Army had a saying ‘If we wanted you to have a wife we’d have issued you one.’ But suddenly he realized he couldn’t let Alma Johnson get away. He drove back to Boston and proposed. Alma said yes, she would marry him.
They telephoned their families. Both mothers were delighted; both fathers were not. Because Colin had to report to Fort Bragg so soon, the wedding would have to be be held in just two weeks. It would be held in Birmingham, a city which Luther Powell detested for the depth of its racism. Always so proud, he told his wife they might be lynched for celebrating down there. Arie Powell told him he was being ridiculous. Meanwhile, R.C. Johnson, a formidable man, saw no reason to celebrate his brilliant, lovely daughter rushing into a marriage with a Jamaican from New York.
In later years, Colin often met black soldiers who had attended Parker High, where R.C. Johnson was principal. When he told them that R.C. Johnson was his father-in-law, the soldiers often replied, ‘You married R.C.’s daughter? You’re one brave dude.’
Colin and Alma flew back to Boston, and Colin moved into Alma’s apartment. A few days later, the phone rang and Colin answered it. The caller, surprised to hear a male voice on the line, said “Who are you?”
“Colin Powell. And who are you?”
“I’m Alma’s fiance.”
“How do you do. I’m her husband.”
They went down to Fort Bragg together, and roomed with a generous white couple who braved a lot of nasty gossip for taking them in. Colin was studying the history of the military conflict in Vietnam, learning a great deal. In later years, he would wince to think how readily he swallowed the idea that defending South Vietnam was nothing more or less than a tidy part of the global fight against Communism.
He flew off to Vietnam, was indoctrinated in Saigon, and was touched by the city, as so many Americans were who saw it for the first time. It was called “the Paris of the Orient” and had charming bistros, pedicabs in the street, certain Third World problems, but an unmistakable elegance as well. The war was not much in evidence in Saigon in 1962.
He soon went north to join a 400-man battalion of ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam). Hieu, the Vietnamese officer who was his counterpart, was a good and capable man, but with shaky English. Colin asked him why the compound where they were staying was at the foot of a mountain, where it was vulnerable to enemy attack. Hieu said this outpost was very important. Colin pressed him: Why is it located here? Hieu said to protect the local airfield. Colin asked why the airfield was important, and Hieu said it was needed to resupply the outpost. It was a kind of circular reasoning Colin met repeatedly in Vietnam.
He was proud of the service he’d given in Vietnam. He had repeatedly risked his life and once was nearly killed. He was still a staunch anti-Communist but he was shaken to see Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara claiming to have proof that ARVN and U.S. advisors were defeating the Communist Viet Cong. Colin and the battalion he advised had struggled even to find any Viet Cong, and had certainly not defeated any of them. He wondered if McNamara was brainwashed himself or was deliberately misleading the American people. Neither possibility was very palatable.
For three years, he worked at Fort Benning, as the U.S. became more and more involved in Vietnam. President Johnson was well aware that America had never lost a war and he was determined not to lose this one. More and more soldiers and officers were sent to Vietnam. One of Colin’s oldest friends, Tony Mavroudis, was killed in a firefight in Vietnam. Alma Powell was deeply worried about her husband being killed and Colin himself had been shaken to have missed the birth of his first child, Michael, because of his last Vietnam tour. He did see the birth of his daughter Linda.
He realized he could apply to study at the Army Command and General Staff College, at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. That fort, founded back in 1827, had played a key part of the military careers of George Custer, Philip Sheridan, Dwight Eisenhower and George Patton. In the Spring of 1967, Powell learned that he’d been accepted into the program.
This was good news on several fronts: he would not be risking his life in Vietnam, at least not for the moment; he could live with his family; and it meant the Army brass still saw him as a possible general. They didn’t waste time giving advanced training to people who weren’t going to advance high in the Army. It was a stimulating time. He got high grades at the General Staff College, and met elite foreign officers sent by other nations to Leavenworth. Somehow he was able to be an outstanding student in a way he hadn’t as a boy. He even excelled at softball, wiping away some of his sad memories of striking out too much as a kid.
But by July 1968, it was time to return to Vietnam, this time as a staff officer. He drove his family to Birmingham where Alma and the children would share a home with Alma’s divorced sister. They decided to take a chance and have a last supper at the restaurant of Parliament House, the fanciest hotel in Birmingham. It was only four years since civil rights law had required the restaurant to serve black people, and they were unsure of their reception. But though Colin and Alma were conspicuously the only black couple there, they were graciously served.
At the end of the evening, Colin handed Alma an envelope.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Just put it away in case.”
“In case of what?”
“In case something happens.”
Neither one of them could say the word “die” or “killed.”
It was a shock to see Saigon again in 1968. The streets he recalled from six years before as quiet and full of pedicabs were now crowded with jeeps, staff cars and Army trucks. American GI’s were everywhere, and so were cheap bars and whorehouses catering to them. The charming old city of 1962 was gone, and Powell was glad to get out of Saigon.
His job was to be executive officer of the 3rd battalion, 1st Infantry, 11th Infantry Brigade, located in Duc Pho. He would not be in the fighting but was charged with making sure the 3rd battalion had the fuel and ammunition it needed, and that letters sent to the men were delivered to them. He was also told to prepare the battalion for its Annual General Inspection. He went by helicopter to Duc Pho concerned but with high hopes.
What he found was troubling. Viet Cong dead were held in huge crates; burying them properly wasn’t a priority when much else was going badly. Laundry, kitchen duty and other menial tasks at the post were done by local Vietnamese without anyone knowing if they were loyal to the U.S. The Viet Cong sent frequent mortar and rocket fire into Duc Pho, and it was hard to be constantly alert for a possible ambush. The post smelled awful as the soldiers’ excrement was burned in 55-gallon drums..
Even harder to take was the decay in the behavior and morale of the enlisted men. Rusty ammunition was left lying around; weapons were dirty; the men themselves often had poor hygiene, a poor bearing and poor attitude. It was hard to blame them; no one could tell them when the war would end. The Commander-in-Chief who had set all this in motion, Lyndon Johnson, had just retired from politics, given up. Unlike the soldiers at Valley Forge, Gettysburg or Normandy, those in Vietnam no longer believed they were serving a noble cause. Without the unifying idea of a shared mission, the soldiers had begun to divide into smaller groups, often along racial lines. Many were furious. Though Powell often changed the location of his bed as a way of foiling a possible assassination by the Viet Cong, it crossed his mind that he might be in more danger from his own troops.
Colin Powell died in 2021. Ever since the Vietnam War ended, Powell had been concerned that nothing like that ever be repeated. He argued that the United States should never go to war unless attacked or, as a last resort, after all diplomatic strategies had been tried. The purpose of the war should be clearly explained to the U.S public; and we should go in to win. There could be no phony pretenses; no inflated “body counts,” no selling of the war with public relations techniques. War reporting should be completely unvarnished.