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My American Journey (Paperback)
by Colin Powell
| Category:
Biography, Personal success, American Dream, African American |
| Market price: ¥ 178.00
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¥ 158.00
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| MSL Pointer Review:
Colin Powell's American success story is a must read for those who believe in American Dream and those who want to lead. |
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Author: Colin Powell
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Pub. in: March, 2003
ISBN: 0345466411
Pages: 688
Measurements: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.6 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA00646
Other information: ISBN-13: 978-0345466419
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- Awards & Credential -
The #1 New York Times Bestseller. |
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- MSL Picks -
My American Journey, by Colin Powell, with Joseph E. Persico is the story of Colin Powell... so far. Born in Harlem to Jamaican immigrant parents, he started out as a totally average child, but through sheer hard work and dogged determination, he now walks with Kings and Presidents.
The book is well written, and, if a little dry at times, does exhibit flashes of self-depreciating humor on the part of Colin Powell, such as the story of his running out of gas on the Washington Beltway. This happened when he had become a publicly recognized figure, and, at the time, desperately tried to hide his identity from the traffic cop who gave him a pint of gas to help get him off the road! (He ran out of gas again before he could find a gas station!) Or the time he was "arrested" as a suspected terrorist in the Pentagon car park... he was showing a colleague an antique WWII Japanese rifle in the trunk of his car!
But Colin Powell, although now a seasoned and practiced political mover and shaker, is first and foremost a soldier who loves his country, but is not blind to it's faults. His military career started in the ROTC, and it was there that he discovered something in himself that told him a career in the service of his country was his calling.
Powell came from an ethnically diverse neighborhood, and was shocked at his first taste of racial discrimination in his late teens, but he was determined that he would not let the bigotry of some of his fellow Americans dictate the course of his life. The Military was an equal opportunities employer, a situation he took full advantage of, and he rose rapidly through the ranks. He served in Germany, helping to hold back the "Red Hoards," and in his early 20's was part of a detail sent to guard the Army's pride and joy... an Atomic Cannon!
Army life is presented honestly and forthrightly, from grunt work, to training, to accomplishments small and large, the forced separation from his wife and family, to his first shattering experience of having a fellow soldier die in his arms - the result of a "Friendly Fire" incident - to the political maneuvering that often accompanies high office. He has harsh words to say about the Vietnam War, mostly aimed at the political "leadership" of the time who blundered into the conflict without any clear goals or expectations.
He has been, and still is, at the heart of the decision making process that has shaped our World, for better or ill. I would describe Colin Powell as a genuine Patriot; he has put himself in the firing line to state his views and thoughts about the Armed Services and their place in American life. He has campaigned for recognition of the tens of thousands of black and ethnic soldiers who have served this country in its time of need, many of whom were disgracefully ignored, and he has campaigned to cut away at the wasteful practices that have bedeviled the services without improving its ability to function.
His political observations are also of great interest. He had served directly, at the time of writing, three Presidents, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Bill Clinton. One of the most interesting, and extensive, parts of the book, is his telling of the events that led up to, and the prosecution of, the Gulf War. I learnt a great deal that I had not known before about the war, even though it had received saturation coverage in the UK media. Something that was confirmed for me was - a very strong rumor at the time - that Margaret Thatcher played a pivotal role in bolstering President Bush's resolve to go to war, and not to rely on sanctions and diplomacy alone, to oust the Iraqi forces from Kuwait.
The logistics of modern warfare are explored in some detail, and you really get a sense of what it took to assemble the multinational force. The only thing that disappointed about this part of the book was that there was very little exploration of the politics involved, which must have been hellish. There's some about the relationship between Bush and Thatcher, and even John Major, Margaret Thatcher's successor as British Prime Minister during the War, and quite a bit about the almost full-time political arm-twisting that went on to stop the Israeli's from getting involved. No Arab country could possibly have stood by and watched the Israeli's beating [up one] another Arab nation... even the despot Saddam!
He also shares with us the agonies he went through, trying to ensure that US forces weren't bogged down in the twin hellholes of Bosnia and Mogadishu. He saw them both as Vietnam-like situations, where the US could be sucked into internecine struggles that date back hundreds, if not thousands, of years. He could see no military "solution" to the age-old grievances, just an exercise in keeping the combatants apart, that could, and to an extent was, paid for with American blood. And once the mighty Americans had left? Well, the combatants would then cheerfully return to slaughtering each other as they had done for centuries.
The story of Colin Powell is not yet finished; he is, after all, the present Bush administration's Secretary of State! It is a fascinating tale, and one we would recommend highly.
(From quoting Paul Fogarty, USA)
Target readers:
All people who believe in or seek inspiration from Colin Powell's success story. For Chinese readers, the Chinese economic boom is now offering those ambitious and empowered opportunities of similar magnitude to that of the American dream, and we believe reading Colin Powell's book will greatly inspire those believing in their Chinese Dream.
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One of the most prominent figures in American public life, General Colin L. Powell served as the twelfth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under both President George Bush and President Bill Clinton. He was a major architect of Desert Storm, the dramatic Allied success in the forty-three-day Gulf War, which began in January 1991.
General Powell was born in New York City in 1937 and raised in the South Bronx by his parents, who had immigrated to America from Jamaica. He came up through the New York City public school system and received a commission as an army second lieutenant upon graduation from the City College of New York in 1958.
Early in his career, General Powell was stationed in Germany and in a number of posts in the United States, and served two tours in Vietnam, 1962-1963 and 1968-1969. He was also a battalion commander in Korea from 1973 to 1974 and later commanded the 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and V Corps in Germany.
General Powell was appointed Deputy National Security Advisor by President Ronald Reagan in January 1987 and in December 1987 became National Security Advisor, a post he held until January 1989. He served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from October 1989 until his retirement on September 30, 1993.
General Powell has received numerous U.S. military awards and decorations, as well as civilian awards honoring his public service, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which he was awarded twice. He has also been decorated by the governments of Argentina, Bahrain, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Jamaica, Japan, Korea, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, the United Kingdom, and Venezuela, and received an honorary knighthood (Knight Commanders of Bath) from the Queen of England.
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From Publisher
Colin Powell is the embodiment of the American dream. He was born in Harlem to immigrant parents from Jamaica. He knew the rough life of the streets. He overcame a barely average start at school. Then he joined the Army. The rest is history - but a history that until now has been known only on the surface. Here, for the first time, he himself tells us how it happened, in a memoir distinguished by a heartfelt love of country and family, warm good humor, and a soldier's directness. He writes of the anxieties and missteps as well as the triumphs that marked his rise to four-star general, National Security Advisor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, mastermind of Desert Storm, and now the man the country would most like to draft as President just as it drafted General Eisenhower before him in 1952.
We see Powell growing up, getting into mischief, going to church with his father, working in a bottling plant, joining the ROTC. We follow him as a green young lieutenant on his first foreign posting in Germany, where his ascent is nearly aborted by a blunder on the day he is assigned to guard an atomic cannon. We go on patrol with him into the jungles of Vietnam, where he is wounded, and then, in the first surprise turn of his career, into the every-bit-as-dangerous thickets of Washington bureaucracy as a Pentagon aide in the Carter administration. We see how he handled the humiliations inflicted on him as a black soldier traveling in the Deep South and the unnerving challenges he faced as a battalion commander in Korea, where the army guarding the border with North Korea was plagued by drugs, drinking, a lack of discipline, and racial tension. We are edge-of-the-seat spectators to some of the great international dramas of our time - Desert Storm, the invasion of Panama, the dark dealings of Iran-contra with Ollie North and Bill Casey, the climactic meetings with Gorbachev. And we are present also at the encounters with President Clinton on the controversial issues.
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Point Two - Get Mad, Then Get Over It
IRAQ
By the third week in February, the air war had been going on uninterrupted for thirty-five days. I wanted to make sure the President understood that war was going to look a lot different once fighting began on the ground. I took advantage of one of our almost daily briefings to paint the contrast. "Once the ground war begins," I said, "we don't get these antiseptic videos of a missile with a target in the cross hairs. When a battalion runs into a firefight, you don't lose a pilot or two, you can lose fifty to a hundred men in minutes. And a battlefield is not a pretty sight. You'll see a kid's scorched torso hanging out of a tank turret while ammo cooking off inside has torn the rest of the crew apart. We have to brace ourselves for some ugly images." I also made sure that Cheney and the President understood that ground combat cannot be reported as quickly as air strikes. "There's going to be confusion. You won't know what is happening for a while. And so in the early hours, please don't press us for situation reports."
The cold bath of reality was important. Notwithstanding Panama, Cheney had never seen war on a grand scale. The President had, but only from the air during his own long-ago fighter pilot days.
As the bombing continued, one downside of airpower started to come into sharp focus, particularly what happened on February 13. That day, two of our aircraft scored direct hits on the Al Firdos bunker in Baghdad, which we regarded as a command and control site and which the Iraqis claimed was an air-raid shelter. Whatever use the structure served, a large number of civilians died in the strike, which the whole world witnessed on television as victims were hauled from the smoking rubble. Schwarzkopf and I discussed this tragedy. Did we still need to pound downtown Baghdad over a month into the war? How many times could you bomb the Baath Party headquarters, and for what purpose? No one was sitting there waiting for the next Tomahawk to hit. Schwarzkopf and I started reviewing targets more closely before each day's missions.
If nothing else, the Al Firdos bunker strike underscored the need to start the combined air/ground offensive and end the war. During a quick visit Cheney and I had made to the war zone between February 8 and 10, Schwarzkopf had told us that he would be ready to go by February 21. As soon as Cheney and I got back to Washington, we reported this date to an impatient George Bush. Three days later, however, Norm called and told me that the 21st was out.
"The President wants to get on with this," I said. "What happened?"
"Walt Boomer needs more time," Schwarzkopf answered. Boomer's 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions were deployed to drive head-on from the center of the line toward Kuwait City. But first they had to breach a savage complex of entrenchments that the Iraqis had spent months erecting. The Marines would have to penetrate belts of antipersonnel and antitank mines, tangled rolls of booby-trapped barbed wire, more minefields, and deep tank traps, and then climb twenty-foot-high berms and cross trenches filled with burning oil. All the while, they would be under fire from Iraqi troops and artillery. Boomer wanted time to shift his point of attack twenty miles to the west, where one Iraqi defensive position had been largely abandoned under air attack and another line farther back was incomplete. He also wanted more airstrikes to weaken the enemy defenses before his troops moved.
"It'll cost a few days," Norm said. He wanted to put off the ground offensive until February 24.
"Remember the strategy," I reminded him. The frontal assaults were intended only to tie down the entrenched Iraqis, and that included the Marines' mission. "If Boomer hits serious resistance, he's to stop," I said. Having engaged the enemy, his troops would have accomplished their mission by allowing VII Corps and XVIII Airborne Corps to pull off the left hook in the sparsely defended western desert. "We don't need to kill a bunch of kids singing `The Marines' Hymn,' " I said.
One of my fundamental operating premises is that the commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless proved otherwise. The field commander is on the scene, feeling the terrain, directing the troops, facing and judging the enemy. I therefore advised Cheney to accept Norm's recommendation. Cheney reluctantly went to the President and got a postponement to February 24.
I backed Norm, though I thought he was being overly cautious. Over the previous weeks, I had watched VII Corps, with its tens of thousands of troops and hundreds of tanks, pour into Saudi Arabia. We had secretly moved our armored and airborne forces to Iraq's exposed western flank, and we had been holding our breath to see if the Iraqis responded. All they did was send another undermanned division to that part of the desert. That's it, I told myself. They had been sucked in by our moves hinting at a major frontal assault and an amphibious landing on Kuwait from the Persian Gulf. They had shown us everything they had, and it was nowhere near enough to stop our left hook. Earlier we had worried that the desert soil on the western flank might not be able to support heavy armored vehicles. The engineers had tested the sands, however, and gave us a "Go." We questioned local Bedouins, and they confirmed the solidness of the terrain.
The offensive timetable was further clouded as Mikhail Gorbachev tried to play peacemaker. On February 18, the Iraqi foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, went to Moscow to hear a plan under which we would stop hostilities if the Iraqis withdrew from Kuwait. President Bush was in a bind. It was too late for this approach, he believed. After the expenditure of $60 billion and transporting half a million troops eight thousand miles, Bush wanted to deliver a knockout punch to the Iraqi invaders in Kuwait. He did not want to win by a TKO that would allow Saddam to withdraw with his army unpunished and intact and wait for another day. Nevertheless, the President could not be seen as turning his back on a chance for peace.
On February 20, Norm called saying he had talked to his commanders and needed still another delay, to the 26th. He had the latest weather report in hand, he said, and bad weather was predicted for the 24th and 25th, maybe clearing on the 26th. Bad weather equaled reduced air support, which equaled higher casualties. I was on the spot. So far, Cheney had accepted my counsel. But now I did not feel that Norm was giving me sufficiently convincing arguments to take back to Cheney and the President, first that Boomer needed to move his Marines, then that the Marines needed more air support, then that the weather was bad, and on still another occasion, that the Saudi army was not ready. What should I expect next, a postponement to the 28th?
"Look," I told Norm, "ten days ago you told me the 21st. Then you wanted the 24th. Now you're asking for the 26th. I've got a President and a Secretary of Defense on my back. They've got a bad Russian peace proposal they're trying to dodge. You've got to give me a better case for postponement. I don't think you understand the pressure I'm under."
Schwarzkopf exploded. "You're giving me political reasons why you don't want to tell the President not to do something militarily unsound!" He was yelling. "Don't you understand? My Marine commander says we need to wait. We're talking about Marines' lives." He had to worry about them, he said, even if nobody else cared.
That did it. I had backed Norm at every step, fended off his critics with one hand while soothing his anxieties with the other. "Don't you pull that on me!" I yelled back. "Don't you try to lay a patronizing guilt trip on me! Don't tell me I don't care about casualties! What are you doing, putting on some kind of show in front of your commanders?"
He was alone, Schwarzkopf said, in his private office, and he was taking as much heat as I was. "You're pressuring me to put aside my military judgment out of political expediency. I've felt this way for a long time!" he said. Suddenly, his tone shifted from anger to despair. "Colin, I feel like my head's in a vise. Maybe I'm losing it. Maybe I'm losing my objectivity."
I took a deep breath. The last thing I needed was to push the commander in the field over the edge on the eve of battle. "You're not losing it," I said. "We've just got a problem we have to work out. You have the full confidence of all of us back here. At the end of the day, you know I'm going to carry your message, and we'll do it your way." It was time to break off the conversation before one of us threw another match into the gasoline.
Within half an hour, Norm was back on the phone with the latest weather update. The 24th and the 25th did not look too bad after all. "We're ready," he said. We had a go for the 24th. |
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| View all 12 comments |
The Washington Post Book World (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-21 00:00>
The stirring, only-in-America story of one determined man's journey from the South Bronx to directing the mightiest of military forces... Fascinating. |
Jack Kemp (The Wall Street Journal) (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-21 00:00>
Profound and moving. Must reading for anyone who wants to reaffirm his faith in the promise of America.
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San Diego Union Tribune (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-21 00:00>
A book that is much like its subject - articulate, confident, impressive, but unpretentious and witty... Whether you are a political junkie, a military buff, or just interested in a good story, My American Journey is a book well worth reading. |
The Detroit News (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-21 00:00>
Colin Powell's candid, introspective autobiography is a joy for all with an appetite for well-written political and social commentary.
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