Special: Schwarzkoft of the Man

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Schwarzkopf is a complicated man, the son of a famous and relatively successful father and an alcoholic mother. He cast his self-image in terms of his father’s rectitude and sense of purpose—a puritanical strain. He wanted to measure up as a man of character, honor, and accomplishment. He accepted his mother’s alcoholism with the stoicism of his generation for such “family problems.” The fiction of family normalcy was maintained and the accompanying dismay and anger were kept submerged. Schwarzkopf, a man of giant proportions, had bonhomie to match. He was outgoing, gregarious, charming, and blessed with a good sense of humor. These attributes served him well throughout his career, and were his greatest assets when he was in the limelight during the Gulf War.

*P/WlDE WORLD PHOTOS

As a field adviser in 1965, then-Major Schwarzkopf helps carry a wounded South Vietnamese paratrooper toward medical assistance. His incredible sensitivity toward suffering on the battlefield never left him during his long Army career, and was clearly apparent during Operation Desert Storm.

Military life, which he dearly loved for both its pomp and its challenges, was his passion. It provided structure and purpose to his life. Often, his idealized image was undermined by the realities of that life. The institution and those who served did not always conform to the ideal. He saw bureaucratic ineptness and venality that angered him. But accustomed to making allowances for human frailty in his family life, Schwarzkopf focused on his ideal rather than its betrayal. In his early years as an Army officer he was ever the diligent and obedient officer, unquestioning of authority.

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Schwarzkopf’s experiences in Vietnam changed all that as it did for many of his generation of officers. He was an adviser to the South Vietnamese paratroopers during his first tour in 1965 and relished that assignment. Like most Americans who went to Vietnam early in the war, he was ennobled by the role

he was playing to stop the advance of communism and protect a budding democracy. That had all changed by 1969, when he returned. The war was floundering along with rising casualties and little sense of purpose. The crusade had turned into an ordeal. Most combat officers adjust psychologically to battlefield carnage. It is nature’s way of warding off madness. But Schwarzkopf was incredibly sensitive to the suffering of his soldiers. He would choke with tears when he visited his wounded men in field hospitals. Later his sensitivity to casualties manifested itself in the Gulf when he almost physically recoiled from the thought of giving the order to attack the Iraqis.

Schwarzkopf s attitude toward his profession was also challenged in Vietnam. “I slowly realized that I’d have to think long and hard before ever going to war again. The Army would get ready to send me and I’d have to stop and ask, ‘Is it worth it,”’ he confesses in his autobiography. This same question seemed to haunt him years later in the weeks preceding Desert Storm.

Schwarzkopf was assigned as an infantry battalion commander in the Americal Division on his second tour. The Americal was considered the worst Army unit in Vietnam. The infamous My Lai massacre was committed by its members. Ironically enough it was also the division in which Colin Powell, later Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, served during his second round in Southeast Asia.

Schwarzkopf saw the results of indifferent and callous leadership during this assignment. He was “heartsick,” as he writes in his autobiography. His rage at perceived incompetence or injustice was always close to the surface. Periodically he would be unable to contain it and he would explode. “I had to be a complete son of a bitch to get any results, which often entailed losing my temper five or six times a day. Being calm and reasonable just didn’t work,” he states in It Doesn’t Take a Hero (Bantam, 1992). Like Jekyll and Hyde, the normally charming and affable future four-star general could turn tempestuous under the proper stimulus. His tendency to do so became more pronounced after his experience in Vietnam convinced him that his natural proclivity had its virtues.

Schwarzkopf s violent temper became well known in the Army as he made his way up the ladder to senior rank. Lieutenant General Calvin Waller, a man as big as

Schwarzkopf himself, served under him four times, including service as his deputy in the Gulf. “It was just Norm’s way,” he said, “I never took his outbursts seriously. He usually blew his stack at incompetent staff officers who either didn’t do what he had asked or did it in a half-assed way.” Unaffected also was Marine Lieutenant General Robert Johnston, Schwarzkopfs Chief of Staff at the Central Command, who said he enjoyed a perfectly professional relationship with his boss. But there is no doubt that during Desert Shield and Desert Storm Schwarzkopf terrorized his headquarters subordinates. They never knew what would set him off or when it would happen. The Third Army’s Lieutenant General John Yeosock, his Army component commander and the man commanding the two U.S. Army corps in the campaign, was so intimidated by Schwarzkopf that he was ineffective as both a staff adviser and commander. He was reluctant to challenge his Commander-in-Chief on even the most trivial matter.

Although Schwarzkopfs outbursts were violent, they also were short-lived and usually accompanied by repentance. Invariably, Schwarzkopf quickly forgave the target of his wrath for the perceived transgression. But his reputation as a bully is well-founded. During some of his bursts of temper he screamed that he would fire or court- martial one subordinate or another, but it is important to note that he never did. Every principal officer who came under his command during the Gulf War was still in place at its end. This is a remarkable contrast with past U.S. wars, when senior officers who did not measure up were quietly relieved of their duties and sent away. Underneath his bluff exterior, Schwarzkopf indeed was overly loyal to his subordinates and too tolerant of their shortcomings. These characteristics would prove to be a greater weakness than his temper.

General Trainor, former Marine Corps Operations Deputy and Military Correspondent of The New York Times, is director of the National Security Program at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. This is the first of three essays that became the genesis of his book, The Generals War (Little, Brown), which will be published early this summer. Proceedings will publish “Schwarzkopf the General” in May and “Schwarzkopf and his Generals” in the June issue.