• 'Stormin' Norman,' Desert Storm commander, laid to rest at West Point

    Philip Kamrass / AP

    Max Karmazyn, right, sitting next to his grandmother Brenda Schwarzkopf, left, salutes during the burial of his late grandfather, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, at the United States Military Academy on Feb. 28, in West Point, N.Y.

    By Matthew DeLuca and Betsy Cline, NBC News

    Norman Schwarzkopf, the general who commanded the 30-country coalition that drove Saddam Hussein’s forces out of Kuwait, was remembered both as a larger than life military figure and trusted adviser during his burial ceremony at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on Thursday.

    A 1956 graduate of the military academy, “Stormin’ Norman” was remembered by family, friends, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Vice President Dick Cheney at a memorial service in the West Point chapel. The Desert Storm commander with a tough-as-tacks reputation died on Dec. 27 in Tampa, Fla., of complications from pneumonia. He was 78.

    Powell, who delivered the general’s eulogy, called Schwarzkopf an "indispensable advisor" to Cheney and the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the lead-up to and during the invasion of Kuwait.

    "When anyone thinks of Desert Storm, they think of Stormin' Norman, The Bear; ... he was a larger than life figure," Powell said.

    Schwarzkopf served two tours in Vietnam, staying on after a conflict that left many former brothers-in-arms disillusioned with the military.

    He was appointed commander in chief of the U.S. Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa in 1988. In 1990, he took command of the U.S.-led forces that drove back Hussein’s forces in Operation Desert Storm.

    It was the first war televised in real time, and Schwarzkopf, a bulldog clad in desert camouflage, used his TV appearances to send a message to his adversary.

    “With those cameras grinding away, I knew I wasn’t talking just to friendly audiences, but that Saddam and his bully boys were watching me on CNN in their headquarters,” Schwarzkopf wrote in his 1992 autobiography.

    For the most part, Schwarzkopf receded from public life after Desert Storm, apart from a brief term as a military analyst for NBC. He lived out his retirement in Tampa, emerging to campaign for the re-election of President George W. Bush in 2004.

    Despite the urgings of some of his supporters, Schwarzkopf never ran for public office. During the service his daughter, Cynthia, mused that her father was "too honest" to be a politician. She then apologized to Cheney, saying she wrote that before she knew he was attending.

    Schwarzkopf “stood tall for the country and Army he loved,” President Obama said in a statement on the general’s passing in December.

    The general was buried near his father in the West Point cemetery. Col. H. Norman Schwarzkopf was a 1917 graduate of the military academy who went on to help found the New Jersey State Police.

    “I just would be very happy if the history books said that I was a soldier who served his country with honor and loved his troops and loved his family,” Schwarzkopf once said. “That’s enough for me.”

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    Related:

  • Desert Storm commander Norman Schwarzkopf dies at 78

    One of the most celebrated generals of the 20th century, Norman Schwarzkopf, is being lauded by presidents and military leaders as a true patriot. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.

    By M. Alex Johnson, NBC News

    Retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, the blunt, bulldog-like commander of U.S.-led coalition forces in the first Persian Gulf War, died Thursday in Florida. He was 78.


    Schwarzkopf died from complications of pneumonia after a long illness at his home in Tampa, where he lived in retirement.

    Schwarzkopf, a highly decorated Vietnam War veteran who rose quickly through the Army's ranks during the 1970s and '80s, drew up the initial plans for the successful U.S.-led ejection of Saddam Hussein's forces from Kuwait, which Iraq invaded in 1990.

    He then became famous for his pointed and inventive language during the almost-daily televised briefings he gave reporters as commander of Operation Desert Storm in 1991, invariably clad in desert camouflage, which he is credited with introducing.

    Schwarzkopf described the key maneuver that led to the end of the ground war, a redeployment of forces into Iraq behind Iraqi lines, with a boxing metaphor: He called it a "left hook." And he memorably dismissed one report he disagreed with as "bovine scatology."

    In his 1992 autobiography, "It Doesn't Take a Hero," Schwarzkopf related that he meant to send a message in those briefings.

    "With those cameras grinding away, I knew I wasn't talking just to friendly audiences, but that Saddam and his bully boys were watching me on CNN in their headquarters," he wrote.

    Schwarzkopf said he agreed with President George H.W. Bush's decision not to pursue Hussein all the way to Baghdad. At the February 1991 briefing during which he described the coalition's victorious operations, he made it clear that he could have done so, however, had he been given the order:

    "If it had been our intention to take Iraq, if it had been our intention to destroy the country, if it had been our intention to overrun the country, we could have done it unopposed for all intents and purposes from this position at that time."

    Slideshow: Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf Jr., 1934-2012

    Consolidated News Pictures / Getty Images file

    Click to view scenes from the life of the retired Army general.

    Launch slideshow

    Schwarzkopf emerged from the war with the nickname "Stormin' Norman" and a career in television, much of it as a military analyst for NBC News.

    The decision to go to war to oust Hussein was the defining moment of Bush's presidency. In a statement from Houston, where he is being treated at Methodist Hospital for complications related to bronchitis, Bush called Schwarzkopf "one of the great military leaders of his generation."

    "More than that, he was a good and decent man," Bush said.


    In January 2003, Schwarzkopf said on NBC's TODAY that he thought Bush's son, the 43rd president, had made a "very compelling" case for removing Hussein from power.

    But by December 2004, he was criticizing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for his handling of the second war, telling MSNBC that war policy was being controlled by civilians in the Defense Department who "showed a total lack of understanding of the culture that we were dealing with" in Iraq.

    As a result, he said, "things have gone awry," especially in terms of adequate armored protection for troops on the ground.

    Dec. 13, 2004: Norman Schwarzkopf tells MSNBC's Chris Matthews that civilians in the Defense Department were mishandling the war in Iraq.

    Obama, Powell hail general
    In a statement Thursday night, President Barack Obama called Schwarzkopf "an American original." 

    "From his decorated service in Vietnam to the historic liberation of Kuwait and his leadership of United States Central Command, General Schwarzkopf stood tall for the country and Army he loved."

    Colin Powell, who was Schwarzkopf's boss as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during Desert Storm, remembered him Thursday as "a great patriot and a great soldier."

    "He was a good friend of mine, a close buddy," Powell said in a statement. "I will miss him."

    Schwarzkopf, who had been based in Tampa for many years on the way to leading U.S. Central Command in 1988, was a prominent spokesman for campaigns to promote awareness of prostate cancer, with which he was diagnosed in 1993. He is survived by his wife, Brenda, and their three adult children.

    Andrea Mitchell and Courtney Kube of NBC News contributed to this report.

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