Colin Powell, Former Top US Diplomat, Military Leader, Dies at 84General Colin Powell, the first Black U.S. secretary of state and a former chairman of the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, died Monday from complications of COVID-19. He was 84. His family announced his death in a Facebook posting, saying, “We have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American.” The family said that Powell was fully vaccinated against the virus and thanked the medical staff at the Walter Reed National Medical Center outside Washington “for their caring treatment” during his final days. Powell was the country’s top diplomat from 2001 to 2005 during the first term of Republican President George W. Bush. Earlier, Powell, a four-star Army general and 35-year veteran, was the Pentagon’s military leader, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, from 1989 to 1983, under Bush’s father, President George H.W. Bush.