- Friday, April 26, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
FORMER US secretary of state Colin Powell on Monday (18) passed away following Covid-19 complications, Fox News reported citing his family members. He was also America’s first black secretary of state.
In a Facebook post from the account of Powell, who was aged 84, his family said, “General Colin L Powell, former US Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, passed away this morning due to complications from Covid 19.”
The post added, “He was fully vaccinated. We want to thank the medical staff at Walter Reed National Medical Center for their caring treatment. We have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American.”
Following his graduation in 1958, Powell was commissioned a second lieutenant in the US Army. He served in the army for 35 years during which he went to Vietnam twice, was stationed in former West Germany and South Korea and acted as former US president Ronald Reagan’s deputy national security adviser in 1986 and then the national security adviser in 1987-89.
In 1989, he was promoted as the general and was appointed by then president George HW Bush to the position of chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.
Following his retirement in 1993, Powell founded America’s promise, an organisation that helps children at risk.
In December 2000, he was nominated as the secretary of state by then president George W Bush. He served in that post between January 2001 and 2005 when the 9/11 terror attacks and the US’ invasions in Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003) had taken place.
