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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RIP.
May he rest in peace.
RIP General Schwarzkopf.
Stormin’ Norman served our country well.
I was fortunate enough to meet both General Schwartzkopf and Colonel North on the same day once at SCI in Reno. What a great day that was...I met President G.H.W. Bush that same week...RIP General would that the Army had some more like you now....
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NEVER FORGET
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..then Major H. Norman Schwarzkopf -
Veteran/Survivor “WE WERE SOLDIERS” Battle of IA DRANG-1965..
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NEVER FORGET
This is still America. We will see his like again. We just don't know his name yet.
Schwarzkopf was at the Battle of IA DRANG? I did not know that.
I hope you are well, Aloha Ronnie. Have a Blessed New Year!
The NRA is under full-scale attack in Washington. After George Bush cleared the ground by quitting the NRA, President Clinton landed. Speaking to families of slain policemen, he decried as enemies of the "American Way" those who "run down" law enforcement. Privately, some Republicans urged the NRA to disown its now infamous fund-raising letter, which called U.S. agents "jackbooted thugs" in "Nazi bucket helmets." Such alarmism had long since become obnoxious to another prominent NRA member: retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf. The gulf-war hero disclosed to NEWSWEEK last week that he had quit the NRA a few years ago. They are "very inflexible and almost radical," he said. "They appeal to a fringe element of gun owners."
Rest in well deserved peace, General Bear.
RIP
God bless the Bear’s soul. He was a man. This world needs more men.
I do believe you are on the Wrong site. Spout your drivel somewhere else.
R.I.P. General, hope to see you at Fiddler’s Green.
Good luck with that thought.
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