RIP Norman Schwarzkopf

[YankeeFan]

One of the first "rock star" generals of the post Vietnam era has passed away:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ap-source-retired-gen-norman-schwarzkopf-has-died-in-tampa-fla/2012/12/27/ec648c10-5083-11e2-835b-02f92c0daa43_story.html

 

[Lugnuts]

How sad. I was just doing a lot of reading up on him after the Petraeus scandal, as I was needing to be reminded of a recent great general after all that. Personally, I agreed with his politics only about 25% of the time, but what a class act.

 

[Vombatus]

Loved his combat video narration.
Only class I ever failed was in early 1991, when I couldn't stop watching CNN.

 

[Batman]

RIP to not just an American hero, but someone who helped make it OK to be proud of America again.

 

[Stoney]

RIP to not just an American hero, but someone who helped make it OK to be proud of America again.

Oh, gimme a break. Were you ashamed to be an American before 1991?

No offense to the ole general, but what the hell did he do that would cause one to change their fundamental view on whether it's ok to be proud to be an american or not?

 

[Uncle.Ruckus]

RIP to not just an American hero, but someone who helped make it OK to be proud of America again.

Oh, gimme a break. Were you ashamed to be an American before 1991?

No offense to the ole general, but what the hell did he do that would cause one to change their fundamental view on whether it's ok to be proud to be an american or not?

Jimmy Carter. Duh.

 

[dooley_womack1]

Nothing more needed to be done. Saddam was contained. Our obligation was at a reasonable cost, and the world was on our side. Stormin' Norman and Bush the Elder orchestrated this one-float parade, and Bush the Younger managed to **** it up.

R.I.P., General.

 

[Stoney]

Nothing more needed to be done. Saddam was contained. Our obligation was at a reasonable cost, and the world was on our side. Stormin' Norman and Bush the Elder orchestrated this one-float parade, and Bush the Younger managed to **** it up.

R.I.P., General.

Now this is a reasonable take.

I will give Norman, Colin and the elder Bush credit for competently managing Gulf War I as it should've been handled. They successfully put Saddam in a box where he was easily contained and no longer a threat, and they kept the rest of the world largely on our side. BUT they don't get bonus points simply for not being the monumentally atrocious and disastrous screw ups that baby Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were 12 years later. And there's nothing he did to "make it ok to be proud to be an American again." Where that take came from is beyond me.

 

[Boom_70]

Nothing more needed to be done. Saddam was contained. Our obligation was at a reasonable cost, and the world was on our side. Stormin' Norman and Bush the Elder orchestrated this one-float parade, and Bush the Younger managed to **** it up.

R.I.P., General.

Now this is a reasonable take.

I will give Norman, Colin and the elder Bush credit for competently managing Gulf War I as it should've been handled. They successfully put Saddam in a box where he was easily contained and no longer a threat, and they kept the rest of the world largely on our side. BUT they don't get bonus points simply for not being the monumentally atrocious and disastrous screw ups that baby Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were 12 years later. And there's nothing he did to "make it ok to be proud to be an American again." Where that take came from is beyond me.

Toby Keith never lost faith. He stayed proud.

 

[YankeeFan]

RIP to not just an American hero, but someone who helped make it OK to be proud of America again.

Oh, gimme a break. Were you ashamed to be an American before 1991?

No offense to the ole general, but what the hell did he do that would cause one to change their fundamental view on whether it's ok to be proud to be an american or not?

Even Norman Schwarzkopf's decisive victory wasn't enough to make everyone proud of America:

"for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback."

-- Michelle Obama, February 2008

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

He was the host of the first nationally-televised war.

 

[Riptide]

He was the host of the first nationally-televised war.

I can still see Charles Jaco diving under a desk during a live report.

 

[dooley_womack1]

And, of course, the Scud Stud, Arthur Kent.

 

[Batman]

RIP to not just an American hero, but someone who helped make it OK to be proud of America again.

Oh, gimme a break. Were you ashamed to be an American before 1991?

No offense to the ole general, but what the hell did he do that would cause one to change their fundamental view on whether it's ok to be proud to be an american or not?

That take came largely from Schwarzkopf himself. In his autobiography he talked about how Vietnam vets thanked him for changing the public's perception of the American military from a bunch of drugged-out bungling losers (post-Vietnam) to a bunch of go-anywhere, can-do defenders of freedom.
Maybe that perception was changing through the 80s, but there was still some skepticism leading into Gulf War I. The U.S. military hadn't really been tested on a large scale since Vietnam. The way it went into Iraq and kicked ass for all the world to see -- and fighting the good fight, like we did in World War II, without the murkier motives of our current conflicts -- elevated the United States to a place it hadn't been in a very long time.
I'd go out on a limb and say it's as popular as the country has been, on a global scale, since the post-WWII years.
So, yes, I'll give Schwarzkopf credit for playing a large role in that time period.

 

[Captain Obvious]

Schwarzkopf didn't make it OK to be an American; Lee Greenwood did.

 

[Stoney]

RIP to not just an American hero, but someone who helped make it OK to be proud of America again.

Oh, gimme a break. Were you ashamed to be an American before 1991?

No offense to the ole general, but what the hell did he do that would cause one to change their fundamental view on whether it's ok to be proud to be an american or not?

That take came largely from Schwarzkopf himself. In his autobiography he talked about how Vietnam vets thanked him for changing the public's perception of the American military from a bunch of drugged-out bungling losers (post-Vietnam) to a bunch of go-anywhere, can-do defenders of freedom.
Maybe that perception was changing through the 80s, but there was still some skepticism leading into Gulf War I. The U.S. military hadn't really been tested on a large scale since Vietnam. The way it went into Iraq and kicked ass for all the world to see -- and fighting the good fight, like we did in World War II, without the murkier motives of our current conflicts -- elevated the United States to a place it hadn't been in a very long time.
I'd go out on a limb and say it's as popular as the country has been, on a global scale, since the post-WWII years.
So, yes, I'll give Schwarzkopf credit for playing a large role in that time period.

Fair enough, although I'd point out that serves as an explanation for why Vets may've been more proud of the U.S. Military after the Vietnam stigma, but not why the rest of us should've felt like it was "OK to be feel proud to be an American again."

And, fwiw, the notion that Gulf War I went so well because it was better run, or the US military performed so much better, or because of any Schwarzkopf expertise, is largely bull****. The reason GWI went better was quite simply because it was a thousand times EASIER to win than the wars that went less well.

We had the ENTIRE DAMN WORLD behind our back against one little pariah state and, to declare victory, all we had to do was remove Saddam from Kuwait and get his back where he belonged. It is SO much easier to win a war when you've those narrow and clearly defined goals and your job is merely to REMOVE the invader, instead of BEING the invader and occupier as we attempted in Vietnam, Iraq II, and Afghanistan.

If you want to give Schwarzkopf credit for supposedly being smarter than our generals in our "quagmire" wars, fine by me. But, truth is, it's largely BS. His war went better simply because he was assigned a far easier task.

 

[I Should Coco]

I realize this makes me a bad, bad person ... and possibly part of the "liberal media" ...

But a reporter and I had quite a few laughs Thursday evening belting out "War Pigs" in the newsroom, changing a few words to "honor" ol' Stormin' Norman.

What the hell, for old times' sake ... No Blood for Oil.

 

[EStreetJoe]

Another claim to fame for Trenton, NJ. Birthplace of Stormin' Norman.

 

[X-Hack]

Very competent general. But one of my HS teachers, who I trust completely, served under him when Schwarzkopf was a lower-ranking officer in Vietnam. He said Schwarzkopf sent them on a lot of completely unnecessary search and destroy missions, needlessly risking their lives, to up his "kill" count to call attention to himself. That he put his personal ambition over lives of his troops and the overall mission. But he did do a masterful job in the Gulf.

 

[heyabbott]

RIP to not just an American hero, but someone who helped make it OK to be proud of America again.

Oh, gimme a break. Were you ashamed to be an American before 1991?

No offense to the ole general, but what the hell did he do that would cause one to change their fundamental view on whether it's ok to be proud to be an american or not?

That take came largely from Schwarzkopf himself. In his autobiography he talked about how Vietnam vets thanked him for changing the public's perception of the American military from a bunch of drugged-out bungling losers (post-Vietnam) to a bunch of go-anywhere, can-do defenders of freedom.
Maybe that perception was changing through the 80s, but there was still some skepticism leading into Gulf War I. The U.S. military hadn't really been tested on a large scale since Vietnam. The way it went into Iraq and kicked ass for all the world to see -- and fighting the good fight, like we did in World War II, without the murkier motives of our current conflicts -- elevated the United States to a place it hadn't been in a very long time.
I'd go out on a limb and say it's as popular as the country has been, on a global scale, since the post-WWII years.
So, yes, I'll give Schwarzkopf credit for playing a large role in that time period.

Fair enough, although I'd point out that serves as an explanation for why Vets may've been more proud of the U.S. Military after the Vietnam stigma, but not why the rest of us should've felt like it was "OK to be feel proud to be an American again."

And, fwiw, the notion that Gulf War I went so well because it was better run, or the US military performed so much better, or because of any Schwarzkopf expertise, is largely bull****. The reason GWI went better was quite simply because it was a thousand times EASIER to win than the wars that went less well.

We had the ENTIRE DAMN WORLD behind our back against one little pariah state and, to declare victory, all we had to do was remove Saddam from Kuwait and get his back where he belonged. It is SO much easier to win a war when you've those narrow and clearly defined goals and your job is merely to REMOVE the invader, instead of BEING the invader and occupier as we attempted in Vietnam, Iraq II, and Afghanistan.

If you want to give Schwarzkopf credit for supposedly being smarter than our generals in our "quagmire" wars, fine by me. But, truth is, it's largely BS. His war went better simply because he was assigned a far easier task.

excellent point. Schwarzkopf kicked the crap out of an undermanned, under trained poorly equipped and unmotivated army by essentially avoiding a head on confrontation and picking the Iraqis off from behind and in isolated pockets of action. Great strategy but hardly the stuff of myths and legends.

And if he were truly the military hero he's made out to be, he would have been able to take Iraq in the first war. Once again politics reigned over military strategy