Soon after he entered City College of New York in 1954, Colin Powell realized he belonged in the military. He joined the Reserve Officers' Training Corps.

During his Army career, he saw action in Vietnam. He later served as national security adviser to President Reagan, then rose to four-star general and the top job in the military, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Clinton.

After retiring in 1993, Powell turned down offers from both parties to run for president.

He returned to government in 2001 as secretary of state and left at the end of President George W. Bush's first term.

In the second part of IBD's interview, Powell discusses leadership, troop loyalty and the effect of military life on families.

IBD: Could you talk about family, marriage and loyalty — when there are so many conflicting influences in military life?

Powell: (Alma and I) have been married 44 years going on 45. It's a wonderful marriage with three kids, and all three have been successful. I'm very proud of all of them.

It really is the wife in a military family who holds it all together. By the time my son was 9, I had been away, totally away, three years of his life — two years in Vietnam and a year in Korea.

A little less for my daughters, two years for the oldest and one for youngest.

IBD: The discipline in the military — how has that shaped the lives of your own kids?

Powell: They kid about it, mostly behind my back. They knew that they had to do well, that they were expected to do well.

They never gave us any trouble. We had no drug problems and no discipline problems. They got into their fair share of mischief, but they knew what was expected of them. Not only by me. They were blessed to know all four of their grandparents. They knew their cousins.

I'm very proud of them. We tried to create a strong home environment and pass on the expectations of the previous generation.

IBD: How much do you try to lead by example, inside the family and out?

Powell: The only real way to lead is by example. People call me a diplomat and a politician, but I'm really an infantry officer. That's what I am. That's my genetic code. I'm an infantry officer.

You were taught to lead by example. You could tell the troops anything you want, but what they're really doing is watching you.

I use this in many talks to people. You can lecture your kids on what is right and what is wrong. You can lecture your kids all you want. You can send them to school.

But what your kids are really doing is watching you. They will learn by watching you, not listening to you.

They'll be watching how Mom and Dad get along. It is that example of parenting that comes to me from my military experience.

Something you're taught at infantry school is that you may be cold, but you must never look cold. You may be afraid, but you must never show fear. You may be hungry, but you must never act hungry.

That's what leaders do.

Because if you show fear, hunger or fatigue, then your troops will pick up that emotion. The model of the infantry school is "Follow me."

Well, "me" sets the example if you want someone to follow.

IBD: You've written that people should not "underestimate the trust factor."

Powell: People want to trust their leaders.

How do you gain someone's trust?

By having a vision for them, being totally honest with them and taking care of them.

Give them the equipment or the training they need to do the job.

And you develop bonds within the organization by setting the example and the other things we talked about.

Trust is what keeps an organization together, what causes soldiers to go into battle and stand by each other. They do it for country. They do it for the mission. But above all they do it for each other.

The kids you see on the streets of Baghdad — why are they doing it? How can they hold together under these circumstances? They do it because they trust their leaders and they do it for each other.

IBD: How does that differ from Vietnam, when we had a conscript military?

Powell: The same. It was a conscript military, but there were more volunteers than people realize.

When you're getting shot at and you know what you have to do to survive, and you know the importance of your buddy keeping you alive and you keeping him alive, that bond of trust and loyalty between soldiers existed then, too.

IBD: You've said, "In times of uncertainty, don't assume back-to-basics is the right course of action."

Powell: There is a tendency to always go to the default position. I've learned over the years that may be the worst place to go when you're faced with an entirely new environment.

What military officers are trained to do is solve problems. The first thing you do is make an assessment of the situation. Let the situation dictate what you're going to do. And don't always fall back on what you did previously.

I've tried to teach that to my officers and live that example. The story I tell is about the meeting with (Mikhail) Gorbachev when I was Reagan's national security adviser.

Gorbachev was doing glasnost and perestroika. We were wondering if he was for real. We'd never seen a Russian leader like this.

Reagan sent me to Moscow to talk to Gorbachev. Gorbachev and I argued across the table.

He didn't think we were responding well enough to these great ideas of his.

He leaned over the table and said, "General, I'm so very sorry that you will have to find a new enemy."

And I didn't want to. We had studied this enemy for 30 years. We had a great budget. And I didn't want to change.

But I couldn't go back to the default position, because he had eliminated the Soviet Union as a threat.

Most of my work as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which I became two years after this conversation, had to do not with Desert Storm or Desert Shield or Panama. It had to do with reorganizing the Army because we'd lost our enemy.

By the time I was through, we'd reduced the military by 25% and really blew apart the military-industrial complex until it could come back together.

We needed the military-industrial complex. My problem was how to reorganize the military for a future it does not see.

IBD: You've written, "We're all part of one quality family, working together as a family." Did that apply when you were at the top of the military?

Powell: Yes, always. In private, not that often in public, I'd always talk about my kids, meaning the soldiers.

They believe in each other. And even though we all have concerns about this conflict and our mission, these kids don't have time to think about that. They trust their leaders and hope they know what they're doing.

But it isn't President Bush or General Powell or Secretary Gates who tells them what time to get up in the morning. It's their sergeant.

That's their world — a world of sergeants and lieutenants and captains