Retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf has died in Tampa, Fla. He was 78 years old.
Best known as the man who led Desert Storm in the winter of 1991, he became the public face of the first American war to be covered around the clock, a conflict that featured stealth bombers and TV-ready cockpit footage that showed precision-guided bombs hitting their marks.
Schwarzkopf attended West Point and served as an advisor to local troops in South Vietnam where he saw extensive combat action. In 1988 he was promoted to general and appointed to head the U.S. Central Command. His wargaming strategies in that role proved prescient as Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 and Operation Desert Shield was put into play to protect Saudi Arabia.
Schwarzkopf's "left hook" campaign during Operation Desert Storm used overwhelming force and is largely credited by military strategists with ending the ground war in less than a week.
After the war Schwarkopf was offered the Army's chief of staff job but he declined. After he retired in August of 1991, he served a number of charities and worked as a military analyst for NBC.
His biography titled It Doesn't Take a Hero, was published in 1992.
