My American Journey

My American Journey is Colin Powell's autobiography from 1937 to 1994, when he resigned chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Therefore this book didn't mention his address to the UN that he told the UN Security Council that Iraq had developed mobile laboratories for making biological weapon, and he was humiliated. I think he should not have served for President George W Bush with Cheney and Rumsfeld. It was his greatest fault that he accepted the Secretary of State in G. W. Bush administration.


I don't know much about the African-American history or the background. Each one of them has its own history. Ms. Condoleezza Rice is the descendant of slaves taken from Africa directly. President Obama is the son of a foreign student. Powell is the son of an immigrant from Jamaica. His parents chose to emigrate to the USA for the same reason that Italians, Irish, and Hungarians did, to seek better lives for themselves and their children. That is a far different emotional and psychological beginning than that of American blacks, whose ancestors were brought here in chains. (Chapter 1)


Powell was born in Harlem, New York, and grew up in South Bronx with friendly immigrants. He entered City College of New York, and joined the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, ROTC. It became the first step to his military career. After graduation, he entered the Army and went to Fort Benning, Georgia, he experienced open discrimination for the first time.


He fought against racism not by resisting but by showing his ability and surpassing with hard efforts. He always got the best mark in the army. He served on active duty twice in Vietnam, and climbed ladder of success swiftly and embodied the American dream.


In 1973, he was selected one of the fellowship for the White House. That was when he started developing a relationship with politics. After that, he served President Carter, Reagan and George H. W. Bush. He would become a Republican, especially by serving for Reagan and George H. W. Bush.


By living as a military man during his lifetime, he was not a radical pacifist but a realistic soft-shell, and rather peace dove regarding the priority to military affairs. In the movie 'Bush' by Oliver Stone, he was portrayed as only man against the Iraq war and followed reluctantly the war.

He had learned that we should not do the war without the good cause. His philosophy that he wrote in this book, however, had no power in the Bush administration, and forced to resign as Secretary of State. It was the inevitable result of W. Bush administration.


This book reflected well his warm character and also a good textbook for the history of American politics from the Vietnam War to the Gulf War.