I appreciated Powell's leadership through the Desert Storm and though he had a great deal of potential for leading our troops and our nation. I started seeing cracks in who he really was once he became our Secretary of State. By the time Obama became president, I had lost almost all respect for Colin Powell as I saw him parroting the "if you aren't black you're a racist" types of comments that came out of the White House.

In the end though, he served his country in uniform for 35 years and that is a contribution that puts our nation in his debt.

RIP.