General Schwarzkopf dies



General Norman Schwarzkopf

Retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, who commanded the American-led Operation Desert Storm forces that crushed Iraq in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and became the nation’s most acclaimed military hero since the midcentury exploits of Generals Dwight D. Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur, died Thursday in Tampa, Fla. He was 78.

“Stormin’ Norman” Schwarzkopf orchestrated one of the most lopsided victories in modern warfare, a six-week blitzkrieg by a broad coalition of forces with overwhelming air superiority that liberated tiny Kuwait from Iraqi occupation, routed Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard and virtually destroyed Iraq’s infrastructure, all with relatively light allied losses.

Three months after the war, he signed a $5 million contract with Bantam Books for the world rights to his memoirs, “It Doesn’t Take a Hero,” written with Peter Petre and published in 1992.

Between battles, he listened to Pavarotti, Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan.

His father, New Jersey’s first state police superintendent, investigated the 1932 Lindbergh kidnapping.

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