What follows is my interview with General Colin Powell in its entirety. It includes comments about the General's proudest accomplishments, his views on national defense, and how this generation can become the leaders of tomorrow and get involved in public service.
POWELL: I have a group of wonderful youngsters from a school I am very very proud of in Detroit, called the Colin Powell Academy. It's a charter school in Detroit formed a few years ago. It's a public school and it receives public funding, but it is run in a very structured private way. You should have seen when I walked into the room, all of these youngsters stood up at attention as if I was really still a general. I am just an old retired geezer!
TEENSPEAK: You are a hero to so many people throughout this country. If you had to describe what creates a hero or a leader, what would you say?
POWELL: What I have always tried to do in my own life is not try to be a hero, just try to do the right thing every day. Try to work as hard as I possibly could to achieve whatever task was put before me, and in the army, that was really driven into me: that I could do anything. They expected me to be able to do anything. So I always went through life with a strong work ethic, and with a belief that if I worked hard enough and studied hard enough, there was no task that the army put before me that I couldn't accomplish. I always tried to accomplish it in a way that was faithful and loyal to my boss, the person who gave me the assignment. I always did it the right way and I never took short cuts. I never did anything that might be considered dishonest or disloyal. I felt very strongly about the code of the United States Army which is Duty, Honor and Country. I wouldn't do the job because I wanted to get promoted or get ahead, that was nice, but I did it well because you are supposed to do it well. I just tried to do my job to the best of my ability, and fortunately, people recognized that in the course of my career, and kept promoting me. Sometimes they didn't think that I did it too well, and they slapped me around and held me back a little bit, but even with those disappointments, I was able to keep moving forward. So, working hard, constantly educating myself, doing what I was asked to do, and doing it in the most honest, straightforward way I could, I always tried to do everything selflessly (meaning that I did it for the organization and never for myself).
