Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell Dies at 84
Posted on 10/18/2021
Colin Luther Powell (Colin Powell) died at the age of 84 on October 18, 2021 from complications arising from a COVID-19 infection at Walter Reed National Medical Centre. Powell was vaccinated against COVID-19. Powell was also being treated for multiple myeloma.
Powell was U.S. secretary of state and the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under U.S. President George W. Bush and was instrumental in leading the U.S. into the war in Iraq in 2003 with false information. “It’s a blot… and will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It’s painful now,” Powell said in a 2005 interview with ABC News. According to the U.S. Department of Defense, during Operation Iraqi Freedom from March 19, 2003, and Aug. 31, 2010, there were 4,418 U.S. military casualties.
Powell is the son of Jamaican immigrants and a retired four-star general. Powell served in Germany, Vietnam twice, and South Korea. Powell rose up the ranks to the level of senior military assistant to U.S. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, during the 1983 invasion of Grenada and the 1986 airstrike on Libya. Powell worked as national security adviser to U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1987. General Powell served under U.S. President George H W Bush during the 1991 Gulf war against Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.
After his military and government career, Powell became involved in the venture capital space in 2005. Powell was a strategic limited partner at Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Powell sat on the board of Salesforce since 2014 and also held a seat on fuel cell company Bloom Energy.