From the time capsule - Tuesday, January 20, 2009: Your faithful reporter Marcus Jones watched history unfold in a way he was never truly sure he would in his lifetime. Viewing a Presidential Inaugural Ceremony was certainly on the "bucket list." And, this one, in particular, was an absolute "must-see." More than a million people descended on the National Mall to watch Barack Obama be sworn-in as America's 45th President. With a miniature, hand-held camera, I focused on the people who attended the event and the means and methods they used to navigate through this once-in-a-lifetime experience. To my surprise, two of the people I saw walking away from the Capitol following the inauguration ceremony were none other than Retired General Colin Powell and his daughter, the actress, Linda Powell. For the sake of posterity, I whipped out my mini-cam and recorded my greeting to the General (seen here) as he approached and passed. He and his daughter were polite but it was obvious they were hoping to get to their destination unnoticed.

Fast-forward to Monday, October 18. 2021, I, along with millions of Americans, was saddened to hear we had lost this groundbreaking American leader to the ravages of the COVID-19 Pandemic - which up to that point had killed more than 724-thousand Americans since 2019.

Powell, the first Black U.S. Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose leadership in several Republican administrations helped shape American foreign policy in the last years of the 20th century and the early years of the 21st, died from complications from Covid-19. He was 84 years old. Powell had multiple myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells that suppress the body's immune response, as well as Parkinson's Disease. Even though he was fully vaccinated against Covid-19, the immunocompromised are still at greater risk from the virus.

Powell's career took him from combat duty in Vietnam to becoming the first Black national security adviser during the end of Ronald Reagan's presidency and the youngest and first African American Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President George H.W. Bush. His national popularity soared in the aftermath of the US-led coalition victory during the 1991 Gulf War, and for a time in the mid-90s, he was considered a leading contender to become the first Black President of the United States. But his reputation would be forever stained when, as George W. Bush's first Secretary of State, he pushed faulty intelligence before the United Nations to advocate for the 2003 Iraq War, which he would later call a "blot" on his record. "I regret it now because the information was wrong...," he told CNN's Larry King in 2010. "But I will always be seen as the one who made the case before the international community." "I swayed public opinion, there's no question about it," he added, referring to how influential his speech was on public support for the invasion. In his 2012 memoir, "It Worked for Me," Powell again acknowledged the speech, "I am mad mostly at myself for not having smelled the problem. My instincts failed me," he wrote, referring to the report he used that contained faulty evidence of supposed Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction. "It was by no means my first, but it was one of my most momentous failures, the one with the widest-ranging impact." "The event will earn a prominent paragraph in my obituary," Powell wrote.

In 2008, the longtime Republican's coveted presidential endorsement went to another party when he announced his support for Barack Obama's White House bid. He was later named an honorary co-chair of Obama's inauguration and he endorsed him again in 2012.

Powell went on to vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016 over Donald Trump, whom he had strongly condemned as a "national disgrace and an international pariah." He again snubbed Trump in 2020 during the President's second campaign. And after Trump incited a deadly insurrection at the US Capitol in early January 2021, Powell told CNN that he no longer considered himself a Republican. "I can no longer call myself a fellow Republican. I'm not a fellow of anything right now," he told CNN. "I'm just a citizen who has voted Republican, voted Democrat throughout my entire career. And right now, I'm just watching my country and not concerned with parties."

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