My American Journey

Brig (Retd) M. SHER KHAN does an excellent review of the book by the former Chairman US Joint Chiefs of Staff GENERAL COLIN POWELL

General Colin Powell's autobiography is the embodiment of the American dream. America is reputed to be the land of opportunity, a land where the sky is the limit for anyone with the strength to slog it out, against the odds if necessary, but for one born of indigent Jamaican immigrant parents, black to boot, at a time when discrimination was rampant against those who are now referred to as Afro-Americans, the odds were heavily stacked against his achieving any degree of remarkable success. The book traces his long and distinguished career through the ranks, starting form his joining the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC), gaining a commission in the US Army, and his slow and steady rise, first as National Security Advisor and then to the highest possible position in the US military, i.e. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in which position he masterminded Operation Desert Storm during the Gulf War. The narrative is easy to read embellished with warmth and candour, and gives an insight into the inner workings of the US Army, the turf wars between the Services, and the politics that take place at the highest levels of government. He gives some idea of the mind and thoughts of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush with whom he worked closely. Throughout the book, his love for the country of his birth, and the Army that provided him an opportunity to hack it in a White man's world, oozes through. He describes the humiliation of how an outstanding Black officer willing to serve and die for his country is denied the use of Whites only restaurants and rest rooms off post, yet he perseveres and excels in any and all assignments that he is given. During his early years in the US Army, despite there being no overt discrimination against Blacks, he had to perform doubly hard to be recognized and rewarded compared to his White contemporaries.

General Colin Powell's autobiography is especially interesting for serving and retired Army officers, particularly for those who have visited the US Army and have some first hand knowledge of its workings. For young officers it contains much they could usefully ponder and imbibe for their success in the profession of arms, coming as it does from an officer of very humble origins, much like many in the Pakistan military. I am reproducing a few of the 'pearls of wisdom', if that be the right term, that Gen. Powell's book contains, and some of the more remarkable incidents and episodes that the book if full of.

On working his way through college: All work is honourable. Always do your best, because some is watching.

On his parents: 'My parents did not recognize their own strengths.' It was nothing they ever said that taught us. 'It was the way they lived their lives. If the values seem correct or relevant, the children will follow the values. I had been shaped not by preaching, but by example, by moral osmosis.

On some of the lessons imbibed during his first professional course for infantry officers at Fort Benning, Georgia:

The mission is primary, followed by taking care of your soldiers.

Don't stand there. Do something!

Lead by example.

'No excuse, sir.' last.

Officers always eat last.

About the attitude of the army towards marriage in his younger days: If we had wanted you to have a wife, we would have issued you one.

On his experiences at the US Army Command and Staff College, Fort Leavonworth: Leavonworth was my introduction to a more cosmopolitan world. Other nations sent the cream of their officer corps to the USA. We studied together, ate together, and played together. Here was the first opportunity to get to know men with whom we might (and later did) plan combined military operations. One of my Leavonworth buddies was a Belgian army major, Joseph Charlier. The next time I saw him, he was chief of staff of the Belgian Armed Forces, and I worked with him in NATO. Thus are old-boy networks born.

The townsfolk adopted these foreign officers, so far from home, some separated from their families. Years later, when I was serving as National Security Advisor to President Reagan, we faced a minicrisis during the visit of the President of Pakistan, Muhammad Zia ul Haq. When asked for the list of guests he would like invited to the White House state dinner honouring him, Zia said he wanted Ed and Dollie included. Ed and Dollie? It turned out that when Zia was a major studying at Leavonworth, Ed, a mailman, and his wife, Dollie, had just about adopted him. Zia was still filled with warm memories of his friends, and, consequently, a somewhat astonished Ed and Dollie were flown to Washington for dinner at the White House.

The My Lai Massacre: The massacre of 128 civilians by Lt Calley and his platoon in 1968, which was initially covered up, is attributed by Gen. Powell to the fact that the Vietnam war had dragged on so long that young men who were not officer material were being commissioned and being sent into combat situations for which they were ill-prepared or ill-suited. 'The involvement of so many unprepared officers and noncoms led to breakdown in morale, discipline, and professional judgment - and to horrors like My Lai - as troops became numb to what appeared to be endless and mindless slaughter. The kill-or-be- killed nature of combat tends to dull fine perceptions of right and wrong.'

About the draft system during the Vietnam War. 'I particularly condemn the way our political leaders supplied the manpower for that war. The policies - determining who would be drafted and who would be deferred, who would serve and who would escape, who would die and who would live - were an anti-democratic disgrace. I can never forgive a leadership that said in effect: These young men - poorer, less educated, less privileged - are expendable (someone described them as economic cannon fodder), but the rest are too good to risk. I am angry that so many of the sons of the powerful and well-placed and so many professional athletes (who were probably healthier than any of us) managed to wangle slots in Reserve and National Guard units. Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegiance to their country.' About his first tenure in the White House: Organisation doesn't really accomplish anything. Plans don't accomplish anything, either. Theories of management don't much matter. Endeavours succeed or fail because of the people involved. Only by attracting the best people can you accomplish great deeds. About democracy: democracy did not always function well in the light of day. Democracy is give and take. People have to trade, change, deal, retreat, bend, compromise, as they move from the ideal to the possible. To the uninitiated, the process can be messy, disappointing, even shocking. Compromise can make the participants look manipulative, unprincipled, two faced.

On his impressions during a visit to a Chinese village: In the village where the wrinkled old chief spoke to us, he explained how he and his people had burrowed through a rock practically with their bare hands to reach fertile soil on the other side. They had then lugged broken stones up the mountain to build terraces to hold the soil in place. Just as they had finished, the rains came and washed away all they had accomplished. But, armed with the thought of Chairman Mao and the quotations from his little red book, they started over again, until they had built this beautiful community. The chief invited us to share a meal from the harvest of these terraces. The menu, as near as I could determine, was millet with a little gravy and an unidentifiable vegetable. It was plain fare, our host admitted, but nourishing, and along with the wisdom of Chairman Mao, it would sustain us.

About the need to encourage new ideas and initiative: 'One thing I had learned in the Army: you don't step on enthusiasm.'

About achieving excellence: 'If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception; it is a prevailing attitude. My conviction - that you go in to win - was shaped in small encounters, such as going Soldier of the Month. I was to carry that conviction throughout my career. If you are considering getting into Vietnam, Kuwait, Bosnia, Panama, Haiti, or wherever, go in with a clear purpose, prepared to win - or don't go.'

About when to go to war: The wise Prussian Karl von Clausewitz was an awakening for me. His On War, written 106 years before I was born, was like a beam of light from the past, still illuminating present-day military quandaries. 'No one starts a war, or rather no one in his right senses should do so' Clausewitz wrote, without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to achieve it.' - Political leaders must set a war's objectives, while armies achieve them. - Finally, the people must support a war. Since they supply the treasure and the sons, and today the daughters too, they must be convinced that the sacrifice is justified.- Clausewitz's greatest lesson for my profession was that the soldier, for all his patriotism, valour, and skill, forms just one leg on a triad. Without all three legs engaged, the military, the government, and the people, the enterprise cannot stand.

On raising his three children: I never believed that possessions could buy love, popularity, respect or accomplishment. Consequently, I have always been careful about giving them money. They wanted for nothing, but they were taught not to want too much.

On his son Mike turning sixteen, Colin Powell wrote to him, amongst other words of advice: You now leave your childhood behind and start on the road to manhood ... You will establish definitively the type of person you will be for the remaining fifty years of your lifetime. Temptations will come your way, drugs, alcohol, opportunities for misbehaving. You know what is right and wrong, and I have confidence in your judgment ... Don't be afraid of failure. Be more afraid of not trying ... Take chances and risks - not foolhardy actions which could result in failure, yet promise success and great reward. And always remember that no matter how bad something may seem, it will not be that bad tomorrow.

On the fall of the Shah of Iran: We flew to Tehran on October 23, 1978, and were greeted by the head of the US Military Mission to Iran, Major General Philip Gast. There I met my first Iranian generals, bemedalled, proud, imposing, all speaking excellent English. After a lavish meal of lamb, served at the officers' club, we mounted a reviewing stand to watch a parade of Iran's crack troops, the 'Immortals', in tailored uniforms, berets, and gleaming ladder-laced boots, men who performed with much shouting and martial flair. The Iranian officer next to me explained, 'Their loyalty is total. The Immortals will fight to the last man to protect the Shah.' ... Less than three months after the trip, on January 16, 1979, the Shah was driven from his country. I saw in the 'Washington Post' photos of the naked bodies of executed generals who had been our hosts, stretched out on morgue slabs. The Homofar class went over to the Shah's enemies. The Immortals had not fought to the last man. They had cracked like a crystal goblet on the first day of fighting. My suspicion of elites and show horse units deepened. Keep looking beneath surface appearances, I reminded myself, and don't shrink from doing so because you might not like what you find. In the end, in Iran, all our investment in an individual, rather than a country, came to naught. When the Shah fell, our Iran policy fell with him. All the billions we had spent there only exacerbated conditions and contributed to the rise of a fundamentalist regime implacably opposed to us to this day.

On the importance of good commanders: ... The battalions that did best were those with the best commanders. A good commander could motivate his men to excel under any conditions ... we never lost sight of the reality that people, particularly gifted commanders, are what make units succeed. The way I like to put it, leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.

On loyalty: When we are debating an issue, loyalty means giving me your honest opinion, whether you think I will like it or not. Disagreement at this stage stimulates me. But once a decision has been made, the debate ends. From that point on, loyalty means executing the decision as if it were your own ... This particular emperor expected to be told when he was naked. He did not care to freeze to death in his own ignorance ... bad news isn't wine. It doesn't improve with age ... The worst thing was for subordinates to labour in ignorance in order to conceal their confusion and wind up doing the wrong thing.

On visiting subordinate units: ... I knew that planned visits always produce a flurry of wasted effort. The smell of fresh paint and the sight of white-washed walkways are the sure sign of an insecure commander.

On why the Iranian Hostages rescue mission, Desert One, failed: Weaknesses in the chain of command, communications, weather forecasting, and security further contributed to the failure. There can be no question of the bravery of the men who headed into the Iranian desert. But more than bravery was required. Consequently, the mission failed, and men paid with their lives. Colonel Beckwith, the Delta Force Commander, said it best: 'you cannot take a few people from one unit, throw them in with some from another, give them someone else's equipment, and hope to come up with a top-notch fighting outfit'... I would have rated Desert One's chances of success at a hundred to one, foolhardy odds for a military operation. And the failure may well have fatally wounded the Carter presidency.

On the importance of optimism: Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

On the famous Reagan ranch in California where he went to brief the President: I was surprised at the modesty of the ranch house, small and lacking even central heating. I entered and found President Reagan in a plaid shirt, jeans, and boots, a man clearly in his element. (Shades of the fabulous Raiwind estate?)

On his son's interracial marriage: The older generation knows what the younger generation may still have to learn. Making a marriage work is tough enough even under ideal conditions. You do not need to make it tougher.

On Reagan's leadership qualities: Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand ... that description fit Ronald Reagan.

On becoming Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ... I wanted a congenial atmosphere in the chairman's office. I favour a light touch with my associates, which you can achieve only with those in whom you have absolute trust and who do not mistake an easy going style for lax standards. I like staff members who take their work seriously, but not themselves. I like people who work hard and play hard. I long ago concluded that organization charts and fancy titles count for nothing. I told my staff that they should go in and out of my office without exaggerated ceremony.

General Powell describes at some length the planning that went into the Gulf War and then its execution, the temptation to restrict it to an air war so as to keep down Allied casualties. 'Air strikes are so tempting, so swift, so seemingly surgical. We might be able to win a war by air, though, so far no one had. The trouble with airpower is that you leave the initiative in the hands of the enemy. He gets to decide when he's had enough. We were planning a full campaign - air, land, sea, and space - to remove the decision from Saddam's hands.' He explains the reasons why, with all the preponderance of military might at its disposal, the Alliance restricted itself merely to the vacation of Kuwait by the Iraqis. But why didn't we push on to Baghdad once we had Sadism on the run? Why didn't we finish him off? Or, to put it another way, why didn't we move the goalposts? What tends to be forgotten is that while the United States led the way, we were heading an international coalition carrying out a clearly defined UN mission. That mission was accomplished.' (Sadly, the general does not go into the origins of the Kuwait invasion by Iraq, and how the US government may have encouraged Saddam Hussain into the misadventure so that the US could then gain a permanent of foothold in the Gulf while destroying Saddam Hussain's formidable army which posed a threat to the region. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the Gulf War, it was a triumph of incisive planning and almost faultless execution, in the words of John Keegan, a notable contemporary historian)

General Colin Powell's thirty years long adventure in the military came to an end in 1993 after he completed his four years term as Chairman. After the final ceremonies were over, he retired to a home that he had bought in the Washington suburbs. He spent the first morning of civilian life fixing a leaking kitchen sink. 'The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs had become Harry Homeowner. When I stepped from four stars to civilian, overnight my personal staff of ninety disappeared. (Compare this with the staff that our senior officers, even M.Ds of Fauji Foundation, take into retirement, and one begins to realize how we pamper into perpetuity those who reach the top of the totem pole of power in Pakistan!)