BREAKING: AP Source: Retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf Has Died in Tampa, Fla.

[Hissyspit]

Source: AP

AP SOURCE: RETIRED GEN. NORMAN SCHWARZKOPF DIES

By LOLITA C. BALDOR
— Dec. 27 7:24 PM EST

WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. official says retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, who commanded the U.S.-led international coalition that drove Saddam Hussein's forces out of Kuwait in 1991, has died. He was 78.

The official tells The Associated Press that Schwarzkopf died Thursday in Tampa, Fla. The official wasn't authorized to release the information publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

A much-decorated combat soldier in Vietnam, Schwarzkopf was known popularly as "Stormin' Norman" for a notoriously explosive temper.

He lived in retirement in Tampa, where he had served in his last military assignment as commander-in-chief of U.S. Central Command. That is the headquarters responsible for U.S. military and security concerns in nearly 20 countries from the eastern Mediterranean and Africa to Pakistan.

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-source-retired-gen-norman-schwarzkopf-dies

---

I knew him. I think he owes my Mom $200 from the mid-1970s.

[calimary]

1. Wow - Stormin' Norman.

You knew him? This time YOU get to tell the cool stories, Hissyspit!

[Hissyspit]

5. I was just thinking of your post! He threatened to throw a jelly jar at my Dad.

That kind of think may have had something to do with his nickname. He was my Dad's CO in Alaska. I was about 12-13. I think my sister baby-sat for him.

[UnrepentantLiberal]

17. That's interseting.

You should write an OP about that.

[calimary]

18. That's quite a memory, Hissyspit! A jelly jar?

Was he trying to hit her or give her something to hit your dad with? It must have been pretty wild for you to watch Operation Desert Storm and see him on TV, having known him close-up as a kid.

I still remember that briefing when the war had just ended, and some of my friends were over there covering it, having been stationed in Riyadh. The guy who ran the CalWest Regionals out of the L.A. bureau (a regional audio feed comprised of affiliate and stringer pieces) got sent to Riyadh for six weeks, and I had to cut my Hollywood reporter duties in half, and sub for him, putting that feed together every day. EVERYBODY had to double up on their work. And those of us also served who only stayed at home holding down the fort in the various domestic bureaus. LOL! I remember when this guy Steve Futterman whom we all knew and worked with here in L.A. was sent over for NBC Radio, I think it was. And it was HE who asked that great question - "how would you sum up Saddam Hussein as a warrior?" And Schwarzkopf gave this very famous and memorable answer about how Saddam was not this or that and "not schooled in the operational art," but otherwise he was an okay warrior. And all the networks and locals carried that soundbite and ran it again and again and again! I was so proud of my L.A. brothers over there!!!

That made me think of the weekly reimbursement forms I had to turn in to get paid back for parking and mileage and other kinda mundane expenses. Sometimes it added up fairly nicely. I paid my credit card with those every month. And then I couldn't - while all that was going on. I remember how I had to call the store and apologize for being late with my payment that month. I remember telling the woman on the other end of the phone that I had an excuse, probably one she'd never heard before. I wasn't going to be able to pay on time because the guy who signed off on my expense forms had been sent to Riyadh (and nobody was assigned to step in to cover that part of his job)! What a time that was. Btw - the woman on the other end of the phone thought that was hilarious, and gave me a pass that month. That was actually kind of a fun conversation.

You just made me think back on that, Hissyspit! Crazy days!

[Hissyspit]

24. Oops, I remembered that wrong. He told my Mom he was going to throw the jelly jar at my Dad because

The general was upset at him over lodging reservations. He later told my Mom that he was taking blood pressure mess and that was his way to apologize.

[ybbor]

16. I met him once

I installed the security system in his home in Telluride. When I was giving him his orientation on the system, he asked me how long it would take for a sheriff to respond to a break-in, I responded "for you general probably 10-15 mins." He replied " Well by that time I'll have taken care of it myself".

He seemed a pretty decent guy, but what do I know?

[calimary]

20. Welcome to DU, ybbor!

Glad you're here. I will always remember that press briefing he gave after the war had just ended. He kept talking about the plan. The plan. The plan. And he stated that "if you fail to plan, you can plan to fail."

[ybbor]

23. thanks

I have been a daily reader, lurker since 2004. I just started offering my opinion recently.

[amandabeech]

63. This post was a duzey!

Welcome to posting on DU, and please do continue to share!

Amanda

[Hissyspit]

47. My mother: "He really did care about the troops"

[Skittles]

51. I heard that too

from a few troops

[TwilightGardener]

2. HuffPo has it on their AP crawler.

RIP.

[bluestateguy]

3. I do hope he ended up reversing his opposition to gays in the military before he passed

I will say that he was a good general militarily.

[Purveyor]

8. Yeah. That was my 'first thought' too... eom

[alp227]

4. LINK

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-source-retired-gen-norman-schwarzkopf-dies

[DollarBillHines]

6. "Anyone here who thinks this is about oil is in the wrong business."

Riiiiight, Norm.

[whistler162]

9. Let us now when you exit so can check name off the list!

[atreides1]

10. Please Explain

What exactly made him an "evil entity"?

[Alamuti Lotus]

13. the glowing pride he swelled (further) with whenever speaking of the Highways of Death comes to mind

but I will defer to the OP on their own reasoning.

[840high]

11. Wonder what people

will say when you go.

[calimary]

21. Welcome to DU, 840high!

Glad you're here. Sometimes things get a little - well - fill in the blank here.

[Cooley Hurd]

19. Sometimes, DU can be a sad and dark place...

...because of posts like this.

Sigh... please just go away.

[Purveyor]

29. Getting worse imo. I'll leave soon as I don't care to be party with such vileness. Wasn't this

way back in DU2 times.

[Piazza Riforma]

30. Why should he go? Because he doens't join you in the hero worship?

Didn't know that DUers had to suck up to the memory of a man because he had shiny stars on his shoulders.

[Cooley Hurd]

32. Simple respect. Learning how to show respect is a skill worth learning...

Proceed, PR.

[Cooley Hurd]

35. Not worthy of respect...

[Alamuti Lotus]

45. Evidently others feel similarly about our recently deceased subject

who is, incidentally, one with a much higher body count and with more of a record of proudly shooting people en masse when they're running away than the other. Although to hear him describe it, it was only "enemy equipment" that his jets and artillery were firing on.

[Cooley Hurd]

50. Well, the same could be said for Ike...

[Arctic Dave]

31. The best he did was to serve the oligarchs of the US.

Was he good militarily? Sure. But let's face it, the military has been the wing for the repug/neo-fascist for four decades or more.

That's what "todays military" is about.

[southernyankeebelle]

12. None of these generals of today compare to the generals of years ago. No Ike who really

put the country first and warned of the "military complex". The nightmare has come true in many ways. Today you have generals retiring and mixing in politics and sitting on TV without telling people that they have connection with companies that are in the arms business. President Ike was one of the best. I haven't heard much about Norman Schwarzkopf after he retired. If he truly retired then I can respect him for not getting involved with politics. While he was on active duty he did a good job.

[bluedigger]

14. To be a Great General, you have to have an opponent of equal stature.

General Schwarzkopf was a good general, but he never faced much of a foe, as events proved out. As far as I know, he published his memoirs and left the stage. The next generation of Generals seems to have greater ambitions, and lesser stature.

[southernyankeebelle]

54. Yes you about got it right. These generals today are way to political. As we can see with the

lastest general proves to be in bed with Fox News. I wonder how much information was given to Fox behind the commander-in-chief's back. For me this is treason.

[24601]

64. Then your definition of treason has nothing to do with the definition contained in the

Constitution.

Fortunately, soldiers (as well as sailors, airmen, marines, civil servants, members of congress, etc) swear their oaths to the Constitution, not to the President. In Nazi Germany such an act would have been treason.

Political Generals - like ones who run for political office, e.g. Wes Clark.

[southernyankeebelle]

65. Your right but their boss is the commander-in-chief and I believe that is the president.

Gen Patraus(sorry I know I misspelled his name) was working behind the commander-in-chief's back by giving information to Fox News who have no love for the president. By the way I think that is treason for sure. I wonder how much information these generals give. I would feel the same if the information given to the president was a republican. There are things you just don't do.

[dflprincess]

37. Not all WWII Generals

My dad was in NYC on business when MacArthur died. He called my mom from a bar and told her he and some of the other WWII (Pacific) vets he was there with (as well as some he had just met in the bar) were all going to head over to 5th Avenue the next day during MacArthur's funeral procession so they could dance on his casket.

As a rule, my dad was a fairly mild mannered guy - but he really hated MacArthur.

[southernyankeebelle]

53. I will agree with you on MacArthur for sure. Patton was another one. My father-in-law and

father both said he was a mean SOB and a pompous ass.

[JackRiddler]

15. His legacy.

http://deoxy.org/wc/warcrime.htm

[Piazza Riforma]

27. Sadly people tend to forget things like this

in their hero worship.

[Rozlee]

46. A couple of our 92Ms (morgue attendant specialists) were pulled for duty there

by the Red Cross/Red Crescent. They said they were told that they couldn't talk about what they saw on Highway 80 but they were a lot more subdued in the weeks afterward before we redeployed.

[Sunlei]

48. That horrid action ramped up USA hate bigtime.

[4Q2u2]

57. The Real Story

“ The first reason why we bombed the highway coming north out of Kuwait is because there was a great deal of military equipment on that highway, and I had given orders to all my commanders that I wanted every piece of Iraqi equipment that we possibly could destroy. Secondly, this was not a bunch of innocent people just trying to make their way back across the border to Iraq. This was a bunch of rapists, murderers and thugs who had raped and pillaged downtown Kuwait City and now were trying to get out of the country before they were caught.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_of_Death.


Just because something looks bad is not always the full truth, and a picture is not always worth a 1000 words.
Be honest.

[UnrepentantLiberal]

25. A pretty good biography from the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/28/us/gen-h-norman-schwarzkopf-us-commander-in-gulf-war-dies-at-78.html

[Bjorn Against]

26. I mourn for all the Iraqi children who died at his hands.

[brooklynite]

34. But the Kuwaiti children who died at Hussein's hands, that was okay?

Actually, how many Iraqi children DID die, considering that the Iraqi Army pretty much folded as soon as the US forces crossed the border?

[Bjorn Against]

39. Where the hell did I defend Saddam Hussein?

Holy crap I can't believe I am even reading this shit on DU, I thought people here did not stoop to comparing opposition to the war in Iraq to support for Saddam Hussein.

Thousands of civilians died in the Gulf War and that is a fact, there is dispute as to how many thousands were civilians but it is an undeniable fact that there were thousands of them. And yes I realize Saddam Hussein's hands were far from clean, they were not clean when the US was funding him either but that didn't stop Schwartzkopf from working side by side with the people who had previously allied themselves with Saddam.

[Ter]

42. It wasn't his call to invade and go to war

The President made the decision.

[Bjorn Against]

43. He did not end up in his position by accident, he is accountable for his actions

I don't buy the "just following orders" defense.

[Piazza Riforma]

28. Maybe now he can seek the forgiveness of all the

Iraqis killed as a result of the orders he issued.

[RetroLounge]

36. Condolences to his family, but beyond that, nothing.

&quot President Bush) is the candidate who has demonstrated the conviction needed to defeat terrorism. In contrast to the President's steadfast determination to defeat our enemies, Senator Kerry has a record of weakness that gives me no confidence in his ability to fight and win the War on Terror."

Nice quote General.

RL

[CreekDog]

52. thanks for the reality check

[olddad56]

38. oh well, another departed war criminal.

[Aristus]

40. I served in the Gulf War, but I really have no emotional connection with him.

When he published his memoirs, my dad, a Vietnam veteran, send me a copy. I was out in the field when the package arrived with the mail, as luck would have it. It gave me something to read during down time. It sits on my bookself to this day, but I haven't read it in 20 years...

[Odin2005]

41. RIP, Soldier.

[DainBramaged]

44. Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, NJ native, rest in peace soldier

[jmowreader]

49. Norm Schwarzkopf may have saved the Army

There was a Field Station Berlin commander named Willard Thomas Carter. One of our nicknames for him was Star Search because he wanted to be a general so bad he could taste it. He was also completely incompetent among other things; as far as we could tell, his primary military skill was ass kissing. If Willy T would have made general the Army would never have recovered.

We didn't like his obnoxious wife either. Not sure he liked her either.

During Desert Shield, the people who were grooming Willard for his star sent him to Saudi to be Central Command J-2 (Schwarzkopf's intel chief) Admiral McConnell's deputy. Willie sat up one night and figured out Schwarzkopf's email password and started forwarding all the general's eyes-only messages to Carter's friends at the Pentagon. Some of them were very bad problems Schwarzkopf was working hard to correct. Carter's friends started calling Saudi and riding Schwarzkopf's ass over this. Schwarzkopf figured out who was responsible and got rid of him so thoroughly he'll never have a chance to harm the Army again. General Schwarzkopf would have court-martialed the bastard if more pressing business hadn't had priority.

[primavera]

55. Article doesn't say what he died of

Kind of odd, don't you think, that an article about his death doesn't say what he died of? Did he have cancer, a stroke, a heart attack, run over by a bus, what? Some journalist.

[Hissyspit]

61. I heard complications from pneumonia.

[MADem]

62. Pneumonia....and he had Alzheimer's, too, apparently.

You don't die from the latter, strictly... but it can impact the ability of a patient to make his needs known or articulate distress.

[In_The_Wind]

56. Rest in peace, General Schwarzkopf.

[img][/img]

[MADem]

58. Just saw this on TV---one of his personal staffers came to work for me several years ago.

He wasn't an easy boss, plainly. I was no Santy Claus, but I guess in comparison I was Santa, the Tooth Fairy and the genie from the Aladdin tales, combined!

The guy made his staff walk on eggshells--I think that's a kinda shitty leadership technique, myself. You never get the truth from 'em if you play it that way; fear gets in the way of honest communications.

On the plus side, he was able to transition to civilian life, it would seem, and stay busy with good works. Some folks just can't put away the uniform, they spend all their time in their easy chair looking at their "I Love Me" wall, and focus on their past glory days while complaining that "these young whippersnappers" can't do it as well, didn't have it as hard, etc.

He died young, though--78 is the new 65, these days. Of course, career military personnel don't seem to last as long for some reason...

[daleo]

59. 78 isn't far off the average lifespan for an American male

Though an army general is not exactly an average person.

On one hand, the high educational level and social status of the position would generally correlate with a longer life span. On the other hand, the stresses associated with the position (including exposure to toxic substances) are often associated with shorter lifespan.

One wonders if he had any health problems associated with the job, including exposure to toxins widely accepted as happening to western coalition forces during the Gulf War.

[MADem]

60. He had health insurance, too.

I think a lot of us were exposed to toxins during GW. There was a lot of bullshitting happening with the paperwork/data.

[daleo]

66. I suspect we'll never know the whole truth about GW syndrome

Anyway, best of luck and good health to you.

[MADem]

67. They'll probably wait until we're all dead! It'll be something for our descendants to mull over...

Hopefully it isn't a gift that keeps on giving down the years...