As I comment, I have to agree that if not for affirmative action, Colin Powell would have retired from the Army no lower than a Lieutenant Colonel. All you need is a heartbeat to become a Captain. If you have a heartbeat, high blood pressure and the Captain’s Career Course you can be a Major. If you have all of the above and the equivalent to Command and General Staff College, you can become a LTC. Now, with that being said, if it wasn’t for Presidents Reagan and Bush Senior, history would have never known LTC Powell. During Desert Storm, I remember watching General Swartzkoff wanting to destroy the Saddam Hussein regime and take Iraq while the Iraqi forces were surrendering by the thousands and more-or-less handing their country over to the Coalition Forces. General Colin Powell ordered General Swartzkoff to pull his forces back inside Kuwait. The United Nations resolution was to remove the Iraqi forces from Kuwait only. This was the equivalent of leaving the football game during half time thinking you won the game with two quarters left to play. Well, history proved that General Powell and the United Nations were wrong. This was the first of many incompetent decisions made by General Powell. Not only did it give Saddam Hussein’s cronies unfettered access to commit further genocide upon the innocent Iraqi people. Colin Powell will never admit as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, history will prove that he was a complete and utter failure.

Fast forwarding to 2003, under President George W. Bush’s Administration, Secretary of State Colin Powell briefed the United Nations that Saddam Hussein paid suicide bombers $25,000 a piece to murder innocent women and children through out the Muslim world and that Iraq was manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. Powell’s current intelligence, the same intelligence that was briefed to former President Clinton, showed that Iraq was not incompliance with the United Nations Resolution 1441, which launched the United States into a war with Iraq. Once again Colin Powell was wrong. There were no weapons of mass destruction found, that we know of. Should we be surprised? Whenever the United States needs Colin Powell to do his job and make the most decisive and best historic decision for our country, he chooses failure every time! Colin, what do we need you for in the first place?

I am a Soldier and an Army Officer. I chose to defend my country and go wherever and whenever I am ordered and perform my duties to the best of my ability. Powell’s advice to President Bush helped expedite and land me inside the countries of Kuwait and Iraq. My fellow Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines were subjected to searing heat, attacks, some were wounded, we witnessed the deaths of friends and comrades, withstood boredom, managed a year of our lives away from our families, and were exposed to elements that we will later find out through serious health issues should have not been there in the first place. I don’t complain though because I would rather be there than have my sons go through all of that misery in the future. Yet Colin Powell endorses a democratic presidential nominee that has no military experience and doesn’t support the war nor respect the veterans that fight for his freedom. He has no executive experience. He won’t place his hand over his heart during the pledge of allegiance. Hell, I have more experience serving this great country than Barrack Obama ever will have the opportunity to cherish. Obama won’t even show up for work to be a senator from Illinois.

To say that race is involved, you are 100% correct Paul. Colin Powell chose a candidate because of being a black man, not for his experience. Powell has been through many nasty election especially the last three and to come out now and say the McCain camp has been to negative on the Obama camp, wake up Colin. Once again, your country needed you to make a decision, and hopefully this time you are wrong again. If the people make the right decision, they will prove you wrong one more time.