Colin Powell net worth: Colin Powell is an American statesman and a retired four-star general in the United States Army who has a net worth $50 million. Colin Powell earned his wealth through high priced appearance fees, book sales and speaking engagements after leaving the military. Colin Powell was born on April 5th, 1937 in New York. He is the son of Jamaican immigrants Luther and Maud Powell. Colin was raised in the South Bronx. He studied geology at the City College of New York where he also found his calling in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC). He soon became commander of his unit. After graduating in 1958, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. In 1963, he was wounded by a punji-stick booby trap while patrolling the Vietnamese-Laotian border. During this first tour of duty, he was awarded a Purple Heart and, a year later, a Bronze Star. While on his second Vietnam tour of duty from 1968 to 1969, the 31-year-old Army major was given the assignment of investigating the My Lai massacre. In this incident, more than 300 civilians were killed by U.S. Army forces. He served a White House fellowship, a highly selective and prestigious position, under President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1973. In the early 1980s, he served at Fort Carson, Colorado. In 1986, he took over the command of V Corps in Frankfurt, Germany, from Robert Lewis "Sam" Wetzel. In his autobiography, My American Journey, he named several officers he served under who inspired and mentored him. In 2004, after acknowledging it was unlikely that Iraq possessed stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, Powell announced his resignation as secretary of state. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was his successor. In September 2006, he joined moderate Senate Republicans in supporting more rights and better treatment for detainees at the Guantanamo detention facility.
