U.S. Virgin Islands Officials Pay Tribute to Colin Powell, Who Died Monday

U.S. Virgin Islands officials paid tribute Monday to Colin Powell, the son of Jamaican immigrants who made history as the country’s first Black national security advisor, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and secretary of state.

Powell, 84, who served two tours of Vietnam as a young Army soldier, died Monday at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, of complications from COVID-19, according to a statement by his family. He was fully vaccinated, but had Parkinson’s disease and multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer, a family spokeswoman said.

V.I. Delegate to Congress Stacey Plaskett remembered an informal encounter with Powell on her way to a State Department meeting with her then-boss Larry Thompson, who was deputy attorney general at the time.

“He was a towering figure to me — Caribbean American, New Yorker, statesman, soldier, diplomat, servant, humble, ground breaker, pioneer and the epitome of accountability. He loved his wife and family, and his country,” Plaskett said in a statement, recalling their first meeting.

“As we walked through the hall to a conference room, a big man in a suit was bent over a copy machine trying to unjam paper. It was Secretary Powell. My boss stopped and said with a chuckle, ‘Mr. Secretary, you all right down there?’ Secretary Powell got off his knees with an embarrassed staffer next to him and said, ‘Gen. Thompson, just trying to help my staff get these documents together for the meeting.’ My boss rolled his eyes, ‘You’re always looking for a reason to tinker with some damn machine.’ They shook hands and we walked into the meeting,” Plaskett said.