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Devtun directed us to the unfortunate news that former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Former US Secretary of State has died at the age of 84.<\/p>\n

Powell had a remarkable career. From humble beginnings in the Bronx as a child of Jamaican immigrants, he was commissioned in 1958 into the Army after doing ROTC. He saw more than 35 years of service, including time in Vietnam. In Vietnam he earned the Soldier’s Medal (the highest award for non-combat bravery) for surviving a helicopter crash and pulling three others (including his divisional CG) to safety. His final assignment was as CJCS, which included overseeing the Invasion of Panama and Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm.<\/p>\n

Powell was politically savvy from early in his career. He served in the Nixon White House, then was Reagan’s National Security Advisor (while a substantive US Army Lt. Gen.), and after his retirement from the service he served as the first black Secretary of State under President George W. Bush. This latter position would again place him in a position of immense responsibility during a period of national emergency. He was in this post from 2001 until 2005, which included 9\/11, the Invasion of Afghanistan, and the War in Iraq.<\/p>\n

In addition to the Soldier’s Medal, Powell earned many other US government awards. He received a Congressional Gold Medal (the highest award given by Congress) for his role in the Gulf War. President George H.W. Bush awarded him a Presidential Medal of Freedom (the country’s highest civilian honor) in 1991, and President Clinton awarded him a second (in the higher grade of “with Distinction”) in 1993. Powell is one of only two people to have ever received this award twice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Devtun directed us to the unfortunate news that former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff … Colin Powell passes away, age 84<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[359,217],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-army","category-we-remember"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/664"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=118654"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118656,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118654\/revisions\/118656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=118654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=118654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=118654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}