Background
Schwarzkopf was born on August 22, 1934, in Trenton, New Jersey, United States to Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf Sr. and Ruth Alice (née Bowman).
(He set his star by a simple motto: duty, honor, country....)
He set his star by a simple motto: duty, honor, country. Only rarely does history grant a single individual the ability, personal charisma, moral force, and intelligence to command the respect, admiration, and affection of an entire nation. But such a man is General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of the Allied Forces in the Gulf War. Now, in this refreshingly candid and typically outspoken autobiography, General Schwarzkopf reviews his remarkable life and career: the events, the adventures, and the emotions that molded the character and shaped the beliefs of this uniquely distinguished American leader.
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Schwarzkopf was born on August 22, 1934, in Trenton, New Jersey, United States to Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf Sr. and Ruth Alice (née Bowman).
The younger Schwarzkopf entered Bordentown Military Institute at the age of ten, later attended Valley Forge Military Academy, and graduated from West Point in 1956. He received a master's degree in guided missile engineering from the University of Southern California in 1964 before serving two combat tours in Vietnam (1965-1966 and 1969 - 1970).
He was twice wounded. In his career Schwarzkopf commanded army units from platoon through corps level, attended the U. S. Army Command and General Staff College and the Army War College, and served at the Pentagon. He was promoted to four-star general in 1988. In November 1988 he was appointed commander in chief of the U. S. Central Command (CentCom), which was charged with U. S. military operations in the area from Southwest Asia to the Horn of Africa, encompassing the oil-rich nations of the Persian Gulf. Under Schwarzkopf, CentCom was primarily oriented toward conflicts among the regional states. Even before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, he and his staff were preparing U. S. military responses in case the Arabian oil fields were thought to need protection from an Iraqi threat. After August 2, Schwarzkopf skillfully directed the mobilization of a 540, 000-strong U. S. expeditionary force in the Gulf and its coordination with the military forces of the other 27 coalition states. Schwarzkopf and other senior U. S. commanders brought to the war with Iraq what they saw as the lessons of the unsuccessful U. S. war in Vietnam: that war should be fought with little restraint or political interference, using overwhelming force to achieve rapid victory, and that it was imperative to retain public support for the war by minimizing American casualties while maintaining sophisticated management and control of media coverage. These lessons, successfully applied in the 1983 invasion of Grenada (of which Schwarzkopf was deputy commander) and the 1989 invasion of Panama, were fully brought to bear by Schwarzkopf in his direction of the war against Iraq. After a devastating 40-day aerial bombardment of all Iraq, employing high-tech weaponry against an overmatched third-world country, Schwarzkopf's ground offensive against the fleeing and demoralized Iraqi soldiers took only 100 hours to occupy Kuwait and much of southern Iraq. U. S. casualties were only 148 killed in action (35 of them by U. S. fire), while estimates of Iraqi dead exceeded 100, 000. Schwarzkopf retired from the army on August 31, 1991, to write a book for which he had received a multimillion dollar contract. As the most popular U. S. military leader since Dwight Eisenhower, he was also looked on as a possible candidate for national office. Schwarzkopf died at age 78 on December 27, 2012 of complications following a bout of pneumonia.
During his tour of duty in Vietnam, Schwarzkopf developed a reputation as a commander who preferred to lead from the front, even willing to risk his own life for his subordinates.
His leadership style stressed preparedness, discipline and rigorous training, but also allowed his troops to enjoy the luxuries they had.
(He set his star by a simple motto: duty, honor, country....)
Quotations:
"In a recent interview, General Norman Schwartzkof was asked if he thought there was room for forgiveness toward the people who have harboured and abetted the terrorists who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks on America. His answer. .. "I believe that forgiving them is God's function. Our job is simply to arrange the meeting. "
"It doesn't take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle. "
"Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy. "
"I admire men of character and I judge character not by how men deal with their superiors, but mostly how they deal with their subordinates. And that, to me, is where you find out what the character of a man is. "
"How do you fight someone who doesn't care if they get killed? You accommodate them. "
In 1968 he married Brenda Holsinger.
