My American Journey
Book Report on Colin Powell's My American JourneyRetired General Colin Powell is the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He spent a career in the United States Army lasting 35 years. He retired at the rank of four star general. He started his military education and career at the City College of New York in 1954. He was the son of Luther and Arie Powell of New York, born on the 5th of April 1937. His parents were meager people and he lived in a rented apartment until the age of 4 when he moved to the South Bronx where he finished his lower education and received his high school diploma. Upon graduating high school he applied to two universities, New York University (NYU) and the City College of New York (CCNY). He was accepted to both of the colleges but due to a price difference, NYU was $750 and CCNY was $10 a Year, he enrolled in CCNY. He was commissioned out of the CCNY ROTC program 4 years later and entered the army in June of 1958. After the officer's basic course and various other military courses he received his first duty station as a platoon leader in the 3rd Armor Division in West Germany. From here began what came to be a most illustrious military career, consisting of a command
Here he was able to work with three different Vietnamese battalion commanders. He was able to take a secure second place in this competition. His parents and relatives were appalled by this decision because the job prospects for geologists weren't such a great aspect for a young black college graduate. He would spend a year stationed away from his newly wed wife in a primitive type forest environment surround by people that did not talk much English. With all the increased pressure on racial accusations some of the white officers and noncoms had problems with giving discipline to black soldiers. The message rang through the battalion and the soldiers knew not to mess with "Bro P" as Colin Powell was called by some of the black soldiers of the battalion. Colin was able to gain control and trust of the unit and make many decisions for the battalion commander. This also turned out in turmoil because the black soldiers would be mad for %70 of the time and the white soldiers would be mad for %10 of the time. There finally came to a point where the village was actually divided in half for the two groups. The margin would be called the "Crack. It was in ROTC where Colin Powell experienced his first run in with racism in the military. He simply called the soldier into his office had him transferred back to the states to be discharged from the Army. At CCNY Colin Powell would get his first glimpse of the United States Army. The groups actually thought they owned each half and would beat anyone from the other group for crossing the line.
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