Posted on 12/27/2012 4:31:56 PM PST by Wisconsinlady
Edited on 12/28/2012 4:45:17 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
WASHINGTON – Truth is, retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf didn't care much for his popular "Stormin' Norman" nickname.
The seemingly no-nonsense Desert Storm commander's reputed temper with aides and subordinates supposedly earned him that rough-and-ready moniker. But others around the general, who died Thursday in Tampa, Fla., at age 78 from complications from pneumonia, knew him as a friendly, talkative and even jovial figure who preferred the somewhat milder sobriquet given by his troops: "The Bear."
That one perhaps suited him better later in his life, when he supported various national causes and children's charities while eschewing the spotlight and resisting efforts to draft him to run for political office.
He lived out a quiet retirement in Tampa, where he'd served his last military assignment and where an elementary school bearing his name is testament to his standing in the community.
Schwarzkopf capped an illustrious military career by commanding the U.S.-led international coalition that drove Saddam Hussein's forces out of Kuwait in 1991 -- but he'd managed to keep a low profile in the public debate over the second Gulf War against Iraq, saying at one point that he doubted victory would be as easy as the White House and the Pentagon predicted.
Schwarzkopf was named commander in chief of U.S. Central Command at Tampa's MacDill Air Force Base in 1988, overseeing the headquarters for U.S. military and security concerns in nearly two dozen countries stretching across the Middle East to Afghanistan and the rest of central Asia, plus Pakistan.
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Bravo zulu, General. May you rest in peace.
RIP, and thanks for your service
What???? Whoa...so inappropriate. Good grief.
“I think just about everyone did.”
My sister wrote me while I served in the Persian Gulf War (Ops Desert Shield and Desert Storm).
She wrote that my late mother, who was aged 66, had tremendous “crush” on the General.
I can hear Ma now in her thick Boston accent: “He’s so handsome and smart.”
Very Pattonesque
I bet Barry the useless posts a picture of him looking at a picture of Storman Norman
A good man, a great soldier, a true American hero. Goodspeed General.
RIP, Stormin’ Norman.
RIP.
grief, ever since Obama won re-election important people are dropping dead left and right.
Storming Norman would have been near the top of the list of leaders on the right in a potential coup.
Sad. A great loss. RIP general.
Great American, Great Leader, RIP General.
RIP, sir.
RIP.....
I’m sure he’s now up there with the rest of our country’s ‘great ones’.
Hate to see him go. He seemed to be a great man, and could have easily been president. He would have been great to run against Clinton back in ‘96.
RIP.
RIP General, the last of real a$$ kickers.
You were a great leader.
What the man orchestrated was historical.
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