Early life

Colin Luther Powell was born on April 5, 1937 in Harlem, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan to Jamaican immigrant parents Luther Theophilus Powell and Maud Arial McKoy and was raised in the South Bronx. He also has Scottish and Irish ancestry. Powell attended Morris High School, a former public school in The Bronx, from which he graduated in 1954. While at school, he worked a local shop where he picked up Yiddish from the shopkeepers and some of the customers. He earned a bachelor's degree in geology from City College of New York, attaining a C average, according to his 2006 graduation address at Marymount University. He earned an MBA from The George Washington University, after his second tour in Vietnam in 1971.

Powell pronounces his name "KOH-lin." Public officials and radio and television reporters have used Powell's preferred pronunciation.

Military career

Powell joined the Reserve Officers' Training Corps at City College and later described it as one of the happiest experiences of his life; discovering something he loved and could do well, he felt he had "found himself." Cadet Powell joined the Pershing Rifles, the ROTC fraternal organization and drill team begun by General John Pershing. Even after he had become a General, Powell kept on his desk a pen set he had won for a drill team competition. Graduating from City College in June 1958, he received a commission as an Army second lieutenant. He was a professional soldier for 35 years, holding a variety of command and staff positions and rising to the rank of General.

While serving with the Third Armored Division in Germany as a lieutenant, he met Elvis Presley, who was serving in that unit. Powell was a captain during the Vietnam War, serving as a South Vietnamese Army adviser from 1962 to 1963. While on patrol in a Viet Cong-held area, he was wounded by stepping on a punji stake. He returned to Vietnam as a major in 1968, serving in the Americal Division (23rd Infantry Division), then as assistant chief of staff of operations for the Americal Division. He was charged with investigating a detailed letter by Tom Glen (a soldier from the 11th Light Infantry Brigade), which backed up rumored allegations of the My Lai Massacre. Powell wrote: "In direct refutation of this portrayal is the fact that relations between American soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent." Later, Powell's assessment would be described as whitewashing the news of the massacre, and questions would continue to remain undisclosed to the public. In May 2004 Powell said to Larry King, "I mean, I was in a unit that was responsible for My Lai. I got there after My Lai happened. So, in war, these sorts of horrible things happen every now and again, but they are still to be deplored."