Gen. Colin Powell, trailblazing son of the Bronx, gets hero’s send-off at Washington funeral
The kid from Kelly St. got a send-off worthy of an American hero.
With presidents and statesman looking on, Gen. Colin Powell was laid to rest Friday after a funeral at Washington National Cathedral marked by stirring eulogies befitting his status as a barrier-breaking military leader and top diplomat.
Powell, the down-to-earth son of Jamaican immigrants who famously boasted that “the Bronx never left me,” died last week at 84 of complications from COVID.
“Colin Powell was a great lion with a great heart,” his son Michael Powell said while choking back tears during his eulogy. “We will miss him terribly.”
The younger Powell remembered his late dad’s famous common touch, recalling a time he rebuked an Army captain for demanding that an underling salute him 100 times to atone for some transgression.
“That’s fine, but you make darn sure you salute him back, every time,” Powell told the captain, his son recalled. “The exchange of salutes is a sign of mutual respect.”
President Biden sat in the front row for the tribute to the larger-than-life soldier and statesman who rose from humble beginnings in the South Bronx to become the youngest and first Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the first Black secretary of state.
Also in the pews were Powell’s ex-boss, former President George W. Bush, and former President Barack Obama, who became the first Black president two decades after Powell declined to run for the nation’s highest office.
“I came to view Colin Powell as a figure who almost transcended time,” said former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. “His virtues were Homeric: honesty, dignity and loyalty and an unshakeable commitment to his calling and word.”
Powell was serenaded in death by the U.S. Army Brass Quintet’s rendition of Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds,” the iconic soundtrack of his beloved West Indian island homeland.
Notably absent was former President Donald Trump, who derided Powell after his death, making no effort to hide the grudge he held against Powell for opposing his White House runs.
Powell burst to national prominence as the nation’s top military leader during Operation Desert Storm, in which the U.S. ousted Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi military from Kuwait.
His self-confessed biggest mistake was vouching for false claims about Saddam’s supposed weapons of mass destruction that enabled the disastrous second Gulf War in Iraq.
Along with Michael Powell and Albright, Richard Armitage delivered a eulogy. Armitage served as deputy secretary of state under Colin Powell, and the two were close friends.
Powell died Oct. 18 of complications from COVID, one of more than 750,000 Americans who have died of the virus. He was vaccinated against the virus, but his family said his immune system was compromised by multiple myeloma, a blood cancer for which he had been undergoing treatment.
Powell’s rise to prominence was a quintessentially American tale, forged in the Hunts Point section of the South Bronx.
In his autobiography, “My American Journey,” Powell recalled a post-Depression Era childhood in a proud West Indian household. In his childhood, Powell lived at 952 Kelly St., between E. 163rd St. and Westchester Ave.
A so-so student, Powell caught the military bug during his first year at the City College of New York in 1954. Inspired by seeing fellow students in uniform, he enrolled in the school’s Reserve Officer Training Corps.
Powell would go on to serve 35 years in uniform, including two tours in Vietnam, where he was wounded in combat.
Powell rose to become the top military leader and the top diplomat, achievements that led many to believe he could one day become the nation’s first Black president. In the end, he rebuffed calls for a White House run.
He put his credibility on the line when he made the case for the second war against Iraq at the United Nations in 2003. His stellar reputation was stained when the intelligence he cited turned out to be riddled with lies and the war in Iraq spiraled into a bloody morass.
After retiring from government, he became an elder statesman on the global stage and the founder of an organization aimed at helping young, disadvantaged Americans.
Seeing him as a potential candidate with crossover appeal, Republicans still wanted him to run for president. After becoming disillusioned with the GOP, he ended up endorsing the last three Democratic presidential candidates, who welcomed his support.
