Colin Powell, the first Black U.S. secretary of state and top military officer, died on Monday due to complications from COVID-19.
He died at age 84.
His family said he was fully vaccinated while announcing his death in a statement on Facebook.
“We have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American,” his family said.
Powell was one of America’s foremost Black figures for decades. He was named to senior posts by three Republican presidents and reached the top of the U.S. military as it was regaining its vigor after the trauma of the Vietnam War.
Powell, who was wounded in Vietnam, served as U.S. national security adviser under President Ronald Reagan from 1987 to 1989. As a four-star Army general, he was chairman of the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff under President George H.W. Bush during the 1991 Gulf War in which U.S.-led forces expelled Iraqi troops from neighboring Kuwait.
