General H Norman Schwarzkopf

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 20:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety two, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My castaway this week is a soldier. In January 1991, he took command of the biggest military operation mounted since the Second World War. He had beneath him a formidable array of weapons and men. Within a few months, he had used them with astonishingly small loss of life on their side, to drive the occupying army of Iraq from the kingdom of Kuwait.

Presenter0:50

A graduate of West Point, he speaks fluent German and French, loves fishing, the opera, and Bob Dylan. War, he says, is a profanity. He is the former supreme Allied commander during the Gulf War, Stormin' Norman, General H. Norman Schwarzkopf. What's the H for, General?

General H Norman Schwarzkopf1:07

H doesn't stand for anything, it's an initial only. My father's name was Herbert Norman Schwarzenkoff, and he hated the name Herbert. He always went by H. Norman in his young life. He went to West Point Military Academy, and when he entered, he was handed the standard military form that said first name, middle initial, last name. So he wrote down H. Norman. They threw it back in his face and said, can't you read that says first name, middle initial? He filled it out, Herbert N. And from there on out, throughout his entire life, every military form he ever had said Herbert N on it, although he went by Norman. So when I was born, my dad said, this young man is going to West Point, and he got his revenge. He named me H. Norman, and therefore I had only a person.

Presenter1:46

What about the nickname Storm in Norman? Uh one reads on the one hand that this is because you're fearless in battle and storm forward, and on the other that it's because you've got a terrible temper.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf1:55

I think it's probably a little bit of both. Really, my nickname among the troops for many, many years was the Bear.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf2:02

And I think that has more to do with my size than it was given to me when I was in Alaska by the troops up there. But but the Storm and Norman level label, I'm afraid, is now hung around my neck in perpetuity, so that's it now.

Presenter2:14

So thirty five years in the US Army, even longer in spirit really, because of course your father was in the Army and so you knew all about it as as a young boy. It now says retired after your name. How how difficult is that to cope with?

General H Norman Schwarzkopf2:28

I jokingly tell people that retirement is more work and less people helping me. I mean, stop and think about it, a year and a half ago I had 541,000 people who are out there to help me, and now I have two. But it's not difficult for me because I've always known that my military life would be completed. In our military, you can retire at 20 years. Most people have to retire at 30 years. And some of us are lucky enough to stick around at 35. But even then, when you realize how old you were when you went in, how old you are when you're going to go out, you know that there's a lot of life after that, and therefore I've always understood that I was going to move on to something else.

Presenter3:03

What's your first record you've chosen to take to the island?

General H Norman Schwarzkopf3:04

Well the first one that I'd take with me was the one that

General H Norman Schwarzkopf3:09

That surprised most people, and that's Bob Dylan's The Times They Are Changing.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf3:14

As a young man, when I first heard that, I liked it because it it it does portray uh uh a very simple truth, and that's the fact that nothing ever stays the same.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf3:24

That I think in all of our lives things change and they continue to change and and

General H Norman Schwarzkopf3:29

Although this was the time of the hippie revolution in our country, I didn't consider it purely a hippie song. I didn't consider it a challenge. It's a song of, to me, great hope. And I think if I was sitting away on that island, you know, concerned about my state in life, it's another reminder, too, that things change, things are never the same, and I'd enjoy it very much.

Speaker 43:50

Come gather around people, wherever you roam.

Speaker 43:55

And admit that the waters around you have grown, And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone.

Speaker 44:06

If your time deal is worth saving

Speaker 44:11

And you better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone, Or the times are changing

Presenter4:19

Bob Dylan and the times they are changing.

Presenter4:22

Tell me about being in the command bunker in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, very far removed from the the theatre of war, obviously where you have to be to command. But how great is the frustration of of being so far removed and knowing in that moment these thousands of troops and howitzers are crossing the lines?

General H Norman Schwarzkopf4:40

Well, it's it's you know it it is it is terribly frustrating, you know, particularly when you've been there before yourself. Uh you want to be there again, you know, you you know what's happening and you you desperately want to be out there somehow uh helping and assisting and influencing the situation, and yet at the same time you realize that nothing would be more disruptive to the fellows that are out there really having to do the job to have this four-star general, you know, stomping around in their back yards at the time, you know, looking over they'd be constantly looking over their shoulder at me and rather than worrying about what they needed to be worried about.

Presenter5:09

But but deeper than that frustration there must be uh the anxiety of being in commander.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf5:13

Oh, absolutely.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf5:20

All during the planning process you agonize with the fact that you're dealing with hundreds of thousands of lives and you want to have the plan right. You want to make sure you've done the best you possibly can.

Presenter5:29

Uh

General H Norman Schwarzkopf5:29

Pray.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf5:30

Definitely.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf5:32

I uh I am a religious man, and I believe very strongly there's no saying there are no atheists in foxholes. Let me assure you, there are no atheists in general's command bunkers either.

Presenter5:42

But at the same time you have to turn yourself into a fighting machine. As you say, you play the war games in your head. I I mean, you've described how you you had to talk yourself into a state of ferocity in order to brief your commanders. I mean, you you you talked to them, didn't you? And you said, I want you to go out there and I want you to destroy.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf5:55

Yeah.

Presenter5:59

Saddam Hussein's republican god. I don't want you to attack them, to damage them, to surround them, I want you to destroy them. Is that the kind of mood psychologically you have to drum yourself up into?

General H Norman Schwarzkopf6:09

Well, I I I think that un the unfortunate thing about battle is reluctant reluctant warriors are are generally get themselves killed and a lot of other people killed. People who go into it piecemeal are the ones you know, you go back through history and you see that many of them are the ones that have suffered just incredible losses because their lack of aggressiveness, because they're

General H Norman Schwarzkopf6:30

their lack of the offensive spirit and that sort of thing.

Presenter6:33

As you put it at the time during the Gulf War, you've got to forget the defensive bullshit.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf6:38

That's it. Once I mean, once committed, you're committed.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf6:42

You know, there's a wonderful story about the difference between

General H Norman Schwarzkopf6:44

between being involved and being committed.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf6:47

And someone said, If you want to know the difference between being involved and being committed, think of a ham and egg breakfast, or a bacon and egg breakfast. The chicken is involved, but the pig's committed.

Presenter6:59

Record number two.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf7:01

Yeah. The the next i is um Nesam Dorma by Pavarotti. I I will confess that I am an opera buff. I have been all my life. This is absolutely my very favorite opera. I learned about opera when I was thirteen years old going to school in Switzerland, and the school arranged a trip for us all to go down.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf7:18

to to see the Opera Aida. And who couldn't be thrilled by the Opera Aida? But one of the things I remember, it was the first cigarette I'd ever had in my life. You know, intermission came in. Intermission, everyone goes outside and has a cigarette.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf7:31

So I went outside and everybody around was smoking cigarettes and they offered me one, and I took the cigarette and I noticed that they were taking in the smoke somehow, and I didn't quite understand what they were doing.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf7:40

So I took the cigarette and I swallowed the smoke. I kept swallowing the smoke, you know, thinking that that was definitely what what we were doing. We went back in and watched the remainder of the opera and at one of the most touching times I started to belch and every time I'd belch a big puff of smoke would come out of my mouth and there was an old Swiss gentleman next to me who kept looking at me because the smoke was issuing forth from my mouth. But I love opera and this is very definitely one of the songs I listen to over and over and over again in the Gulf. So this is one that I definitely would listen to on that island.

Speaker 48:29

Yes.

Presenter9:14

Luciano Pavarotti singing part of Nessundorma from Puccini's Turundot with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Zubin Mehta.

Presenter9:22

You once said, um, if I hadn't been an army officer, I'd have made a good hippie.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf9:27

Yeah, sure.

Presenter9:28

Would you?

General H Norman Schwarzkopf9:29

Yeah, I I uh I've always uh thought of myself as somewhat of a free spirit, at least mentally a free spirit. Uh I don't I'm not so set in my ways that, you know, that I I'm I don't welcome new ideas.

Presenter9:42

But I mean, have you been in your life a a a closet rebel?

General H Norman Schwarzkopf9:45

Let me put it this way. I think it's very important that the system always be challenged. I think that I think indeed you have an obligation as an Army officer to challenge. While the decision-making process is going on, if you don't agree with things that everyone's saying, it's your obligation to step up and say so that the decision-maker ultimately has all of the input from all sides before he makes his decision.

Presenter10:07

But were there times in the Gulf War, for example, that you were ordered to do something and you knew because you are

Presenter10:15

an intelligent and and highly professional soldier, you knew that was the wrong thing to do.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf10:20

No, fortunately enough, that didn't happen. It nearly did, yeah. We came to the point where.

Presenter10:24

It nearly did.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf10:27

At one point, they were I was being asked to go ahead and launch the offensive attack when the weather was going to be bad and we didn't have the air support we needed, and I voiced my objection.

Presenter10:38

Yes, but the problem is for you, isn't it, that you might, as I say, know that something is quite the wrong thing to do militarily, but political expediency says it has to be done. You have to go in today, although tomorrow militarily would be better.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf10:50

Yeah, and you've

Presenter10:50

But you've got to obey the order in the end.

Speaker 410:52

Uh

General H Norman Schwarzkopf10:52

Yeah, in the end

General H Norman Schwarzkopf10:54

Well, it is, but you don't have to. You have an alternative. You can say, get somebody else.

Presenter10:58

You would not surely have resigned a day before Desert Storm.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf10:58

You would not

General H Norman Schwarzkopf11:01

No, I don't think that would have I mean, that would have been

General H Norman Schwarzkopf11:04

That would have been unfair to everyone. So, I mean, once you take on the mantle of responsibility, you know, you have to see it through.

Presenter11:11

You've got to do as you're told.

Presenter11:15

You nod.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf11:16

But yeah.

Presenter11:17

Next record.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf11:19

Um

General H Norman Schwarzkopf11:20

I have always been enjoying stage shows too. Two of the records that I selected are from stage shows.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf11:27

And this one is from Les Miserable, I Dreamed a Dream, Fontine song.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf11:34

Some one sent me a Le Miserabla tape to uh Riyat.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf11:38

And uh for some reason it was very special to me over there.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf11:43

I don't know why. I to this day I can't put my finger on it. And this particular song was very special. This song is a beautiful song. It's it's a haunting song.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf11:54

It's a song that that starts with hope.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf11:58

and ends in despair.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf12:00

But still, even as it's ending in despair, it refers back to the dream, you know, that I dreamed a dream one day, and it just moved me it moved me tremendously. Still does.

Speaker 412:11

But the time has come at night.

Speaker 412:18

With a voice as soft as thunder

Speaker 412:25

As they tear you hope apart

Speaker 412:32

As they turn your dream to shame

Presenter12:42

I dreamed a dream from the original London cast recording of Les Miserables, sung by Patty Lupone.

Presenter12:49

You had though um a a pretty chaotic early childhood, didn't you? Your father was away at war and life at home with your mother and your two sisters was difficult because your mother had a drink problem.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf12:52

Yeah.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf12:58

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf13:00

Um my dad left when I had just turned eight.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf13:03

and uh was gone for four years.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf13:06

Hi.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf13:07

If came home only uh twice, as I recall, during that four years, and then for very brief visits,'cause he'd be summoned back to Washington for something, and then he'd have to go off again.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf13:17

Uh the pressures on my mother were very great and she she became an alcoholic.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf13:21

Even as a teenager in Europe, I never missed an opportunity to be away from home. I used to.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf13:28

I didn't spend a lot of time at home because the evenings around the house were not a lot of fun, and so I was always out with my buddies one place or another, stayed out much later than I should have got in trouble a lot for staying out too late.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf13:39

Uh but it was escapism is what it was.

Presenter13:42

Hm. And then you got to West Point.

Presenter13:45

What what would you say that West Point gave you? What did it what did it teach you to stand for? Did did you already know what you stood for? Did it give you something?

General H Norman Schwarzkopf13:53

I think I had a pretty good idea what I stood for. My mother and my father. My mother was a wonderful person, and my father had both given me a moral, ethical code to live my life by. But West Point kind of focussed it all. It all brought it into very sharp focus. It gave me a credo of duty, honor, country that I have lived my life by ever since. And it kind of became you know, it sharply focused where I would go with my ethical and moral standards and values that had been inculcated in by my family.

Presenter14:27

But you must have dealt with many people in your career since, perhaps politicians in particular, who whose aims have perhaps always been personally motivated. I mean, can you spot them a mile off, these people?

General H Norman Schwarzkopf14:37

Yeah, I think you can. It doesn't take you long to get to know who's out there serving themselves and who out who is truly a selfless servant. I I feel sorry for those people because, you know, if you spend your life looking for the next reward, the next pay raise, the next decoration or citation or whatever it's going to be, one of these days it's going to stop. And you are doomed. You are doomed to leave your profession a disappointed person. If, on the other hand, you are wise enough

General H Norman Schwarzkopf15:06

to to derive the reward from the service itself.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf15:10

To derive the reward from the contribution that you're making itself, then when the day comes that you have to leave, you know, you leave a very satisfied person.

Presenter15:18

Record number four.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf15:19

Yeah, yeah, the battle hymn of the Republic.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf15:22

Why would I want that? I would want that first of all, there's a great deal of spiritualism. I as I say, I'm a spiritual person, and here is this is a relationship between God and man in battle, is what it is. It states very clearly, perhaps,

General H Norman Schwarzkopf15:39

More clear than any other way in the last verse, you know, what this business is all about. And of course, it's so totally and completely American. It was written about a war that I believe was, you know, really probably one of the most significant wars in the history of the United States of America and caused great things to happen, brought our country together, hopefully forever.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf16:01

In a very, very valuable cause. So, for all of those reasons, this has to be, you know, one of the hymns of the many hymns that I dearly love.

Presenter17:11

The Battle Hymn of the Republic, sung by the Robert Shaw Chorale with the RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Robert Shaw.

Presenter17:18

You said, um, General Schwartzkopf, that if you don't like it, uh if you didn't like the orders you were getting, then you should get out, you should resign.

Speaker 417:25

Yeah.

Presenter17:26

Y you came close to resigning over Vietnam, didn't you? That that really got you where it

Speaker 417:28

Uh

General H Norman Schwarzkopf17:28

Yeah.

Presenter17:30

Means some.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf17:31

Yeah, Vietnam. Again, you remember, I'm a child of World War II. So, um,

General H Norman Schwarzkopf17:36

In World War two Johnny came marching home again in the parades and the streamers and the flags, and that to me was sort of my my childhood dream about what's supposed to happen to soldiers that go off to war for their country.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf17:50

In Vietnam something entirely different happened. I went to war the first time, came back, and nobody cared.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf17:58

And worse yet, I went to war the second time and came back, and everybody was suddenly blaming it on on me.

Presenter18:03

You did, though, save many lives out there, and won several um three, I think, Silver Stars for bravery in Vietnam. One of them was for rescuing some young soldiers who were trapped in in a minefield.

Presenter18:16

I mean, I don't want to embarrass you, but can you give me a a brief description of what happened?

General H Norman Schwarzkopf18:19

Sure.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf18:22

Let me just say that, you know, you

General H Norman Schwarzkopf18:24

I I always say that bravery is like beauty. It's in the eye of the beholder.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf18:30

Nobody on the battlefield says, Well, I think I'm about to do a very heroic act. I will go out and do something. You don't do that. You're doing your job, and someone else happens to see you when you do it and think it's an act of bravery, so they write you up for recommend you for an award, and that's how it comes about. So the idea of being a hero just is not there. And in this case, a company wandered into a mined area. A person was hurt in a minefield.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf18:59

I flew in in my helicopter.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf19:01

Turned my helicopter over to them. They flew out with the casualty, and I was on the ground there, and then all of a sudden we found out that that we were still in a minefield, that there were other mines there. And a young man

General H Norman Schwarzkopf19:11

Uh ended up uh stepping on a mine. Uh

General H Norman Schwarzkopf19:14

And uh

General H Norman Schwarzkopf19:16

He he had a a very bad fracture of his leg and I was and he was flailing around and he was screaming and and the other troops were about to panic and the worst thing that can happen in a minefield is to have your troops panic and

General H Norman Schwarzkopf19:27

That just causes more casualties and uh

General H Norman Schwarzkopf19:29

and I was afraid that this young man was going to cut an artery and and die.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf19:34

And nobody else was going over to take care of him, and it was sort of the as Harry Truman said, I saw I I believe it or not, the thought flashed through my mind of the sign on Harry Truman's desk, the buck stops here. You know, I was a senior man there, and I felt it was my responsibility to do something, so I had to go over to that young man and take care of him.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf19:55

I will tell you, I was not being brave. I was frightened to death. It's the only time I can ever remember in my life that my legs were trembling. You know, the old saying about your knees knocking? My knees were knocking. I literally, every time I put my foot down, I was afraid I was going to step on a mine, and I can remember having to reach down with both hands and hold my knee.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf20:17

Because it was shaking so badly as I walked through to get to this young man.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf20:21

And uh

General H Norman Schwarzkopf20:22

And

General H Norman Schwarzkopf20:23

You know, then subsequently another mine went off, and amazingly enough, that mine went off right where I had been standing before I went over to take care of this soldier.

Presenter20:32

And you were hit by the shot, you know.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf20:33

Yeah, I was hit by the shrapnel, but I tell you, if I hadn't gone over and taken care of that young man.

Presenter20:37

Yeah.

Speaker 420:38

Hmm.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf20:38

then I would have been much more seriously injured and perhaps killed.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf20:43

So there's you know, if fate just had a hand in it.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf20:46

Next piece of music.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf20:48

Well, the next piece of music is another show tune.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf20:51

And this is from the Mantala Mancha and and it's the Impossible Dream.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf20:56

I saw that having returned from Vietnam on my from my first tour. My mother always used to love to take me to stage shows, and we went to New York to see this. At that time there was a great deal of confusion in my mind because I knew why I had been in Vietnam.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf21:11

And I came back to this ambivalence and questioning of it, and that of course caused me to question what it was all about.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf21:18

And when I heard this song I just said

General H Norman Schwarzkopf21:21

That's why.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf21:23

That's the way I choose to live my life. It may be not something that other people understand, but this is really what it's all about.

Speaker 421:31

Read the impossible

Speaker 421:37

Find the unbeatable phone.

Speaker 421:42

Fare with unbearable sorrow

Speaker 421:47

To run where the brave dare not go.

Speaker 421:54

Jump writable war.

Presenter21:58

For love, you're a dream.

Presenter22:01

Peter O'Tour singing The Impossible Dream from the original soundtrack of The Man of the Mancha.

Presenter22:07

You were made a four-star general in 1988 and you took over Central Command, which covers US military operations in the Middle East, among other places.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf22:14

Two of them up.

Presenter22:16

You were so convinced that there would be a war there, and that the aggressor would be Iraq, Saddam Hussein, that you mounted an exercise to rehearse exactly that scenario.

Presenter22:26

You must nevertheless have been surprised when it became reality and that uh Saddam Hussein, as you put it at the time, turned up in downtown Kuwait City.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf22:35

Yes, I will confess to you that the reason why we were doing that had very little to do with the fact that I was convinced there was going to be a war. The the amazing part about it was it was it was happening at the same time as we were going through our command post exercise exercising the plan.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf22:51

I went up. I was asked to come up and brief.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf22:54

in Washington, and I went up there

General H Norman Schwarzkopf22:57

and and gave a briefing to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and and when it was all over, they said, Well, what's going to happen? and I said, Well, it's very simple. They're going to attack ten miles into Kuwait, take the Ramaya oil fields, take Bumiyan Island, and they're going to stop there.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf23:10

And everybody said, Oh, well, they're not going to attack. Everybody says they're not going to attack. And I said, Yeah, but I think that's what's going to happen.

Presenter23:14

How soon were you saying that before it actually happened?

General H Norman Schwarzkopf23:16

Well, I was just going to say, I got in an airplane, flew back down to my headquarters, had gone home to change. I was going to go out and do some sport and I got a telephone call from Colin Powell saying you were right. They just crossed the border. That's how soon afterwards it happened.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf23:29

And then I got a telephone call, and I said, and then I said, well, now let's see how far they go.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf23:35

And then we got a shortly we found out they were in downtown Kuwait City, which was a lot further than I had predicted.

Presenter23:41

So you laid your plans, the the whole thing, the Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm, became a reality. You set your objectives.

Presenter23:49

When it was all over, there was one major difference between the way you'd written it, as it were, and the way it happened, which was that you hadn't achieved your final objective. You had not destroyed the Republican Guard. They got away with a lot of their equipment intact

General H Norman Schwarzkopf24:03

Yeah.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf24:06

After every war

General H Norman Schwarzkopf24:08

Um

General H Norman Schwarzkopf24:09

There are these people that come in and invent myths. That's one of the myths that has been invented in this war.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf24:16

Let me give you some numbers.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf24:19

Eighty five per cent of all of the tanks.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf24:22

that were brought into Kuwait theater were destroyed or captured.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf24:26

Ninety percent of all of the artillery that was brought into Kuwait Theater was destroyed or captured.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf24:33

50% of all the other armored vehicles and other types of vehicles that came into Kuwait were destroyed or captured.

Presenter24:39

Does it sicken you that Saddam Hussein is still alive and he's still issuing threats and he's still treating innocent people with contempt?

General H Norman Schwarzkopf24:45

Mm-hmm.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf24:46

It doesn't sicken me. I would confess that emotionally, like many other people, I would like to see Saddam Hussein meet his demise in one way or another. Having said that, if Saddam meets his demise, somebody equally as bad or worse is just going to take over. It's not Saddam.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf25:03

We've personalized the war too much in the form of one man. Uh there's nobody in Iraq to replace him that's going to be any better and there's some that are a lot worse.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf25:11

The important point to remember is: Saddam is irrelevant. Saddam, because he did attack a brother Arab.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf25:19

and was handed a humiliating defeat, has lost face in Middle East politics. So he has no voice in the politics of the Arab world in the Middle East today. That's very good news. That's one of the reasons why you have the Arabs sitting down at the peace tables today with the Israelis, and we have a greater opportunity for peace in the Middle East than we've ever had before.

Presenter25:36

Record number six.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf25:37

Yeah.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf25:40

I love classical music.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf25:42

As you can probably tell by now I also love heroic music.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf25:46

And this next piece, the Academic Festival Overture,

General H Norman Schwarzkopf25:50

is is certainly heroic.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf25:53

The reason why it's important to me is because I'm a strong believer in education. I think that so many of the world's problems can be solved through education.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf26:02

Uh prejudice. You know, children aren't born prejudice. Prejudice is something that's taught to them. So they can be untaught. Prejudice can be unlearned.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf26:11

And therefore being a such a strong believer in the value of education, the importance of education, and loving classical music and loving heroic music, this one combines all three.

Speaker 426:39

Let me go and go, let it go, let it go.

Presenter27:08

Part of Brahm's Academic Festival Overture, played by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Thomas Beacham. You'd obviously miss your family on on the island. You've got two girls who are grown up now, they're 19, 21.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf27:19

Twenty, twenty two and twenty.

Presenter27:21

But you got a young son. Christian, who's fifteen.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf27:24

Mm-hmm.

Presenter27:24

Is he destined for West Point like his father and grandfather before?

General H Norman Schwarzkopf27:26

No, no, I don't think so at all. At one time when he was a very little boy in school, they had to draw a picture of what they were going to be when they grew up, and he drew a picture of himself standing in front of a Jeep and said, General in the U.S. Army and brought him home. And of course, I was just ecstatic. He was five at the time. But since that time, he has not indicated any interest. And when people ask him if he's going to go to West Point and be an Army officer, he says, No. And frankly, I'm happy with that decision.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf27:52

I you know, honestly, I I said this and I mean it very one of the things I resented most about Saddam is that when I left home

General H Norman Schwarzkopf27:58

Christian was in that wonderful period between being a little boy and a young man, you know, where one night he would climb up into your lap.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf28:06

And the next night he'd shake hands with you. You know, he wouldn't want or even want you to give him a hug.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf28:11

And I was really looking forward to spending that year, you know, with him, watching him emerge into manhood. And I was jerked out of my house. I came back nine months later, and here this young man was standing at the bottom of the steps. He had grown six inches. His voice had dropped two octaves. He had discovered girls. And I missed the whole thing. And I really resent that.

Presenter28:32

I could number seven.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf28:33

Yeah, this is The Piano Man by Billy Joel. I um

General H Norman Schwarzkopf28:38

One of the fun things to do in life is to be an observer of mankind.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf28:42

You know, I can really enjoy myself just sitting in a shopping mall watching people go by. I think that people watching is something that you learn a lot from people watching. And this is sort of the ultimate people watching song, but it's a happy song, it's a lively song, it's got great rhythm to it, and I listen to it and feel good. That's why I'd like to have it on my island with me.

Speaker 429:02

It's a pretty good crowd for a Saturday And the manager gives me a smile

Speaker 429:10

Cause he knows that it's me they've been coming to see, To forget about life for a while.

Speaker 429:20

Yellow, it sounds like a carnivore And the microphone smells like a beer And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say

Presenter29:32

Billy Joel and the Piano Man.

Presenter29:34

You became, as a result of the Gulf War, not only well known, but enormously popular, not least at home in America. Did you ever consider even for a moment crossing into the political arena and standing for President?

General H Norman Schwarzkopf29:46

No.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf29:47

We all

Presenter29:47

Were you asked?

General H Norman Schwarzkopf29:49

Uh yeah, I've been approached by a lot of people, you know. I've all three of the the current candidates have approached me, their organizations have approached me in one way or another.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf29:58

I've been asked to run for Senator in the State of Florida and other people just come up and say, when are you going to be the President and that sort of thing.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf30:05

I've also served five tours of duty in Washington, D.C., where I had to deal.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf30:10

with the politicians in Washington DC. And frankly, that was to me the most unsavory part of being an Army officer in in our nation's capital. I didn't enjoy it a bit. I I'm not saying that all politicians are bad. I don't paint them all with the same brush, but

Speaker 230:18

I I

General H Norman Schwarzkopf30:23

But in many ways, I think politicians have become.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf30:28

They are elected by their constituents to represent their constituents, and unfortunately all too many of them end up representing themselves.

Presenter30:33

And when you view the two contenders who remain in the ring today, George Bush and Bill Clinton, do you wish you'd made a different decision, do you think?

General H Norman Schwarzkopf30:40

Yeah.

Presenter30:40

Uh

General H Norman Schwarzkopf30:41

No. I've told a lot of people this, you know, you can send Superman to Washington DC as the President of the United States and he's not going to change things by himself. I love our form of government, don't get me wrong. I believe in the Constitution of the United States. I just think the way it's being implemented right now needs a lot of change and one man isn't going to change it.

Presenter31:00

Last record.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf31:02

The last record is Aaron Copeland's Lincoln Portrait. Aaron Copeland was a great American composer to begin with.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf31:09

I love my country. I love my country. I've served my country all my life, and I'm very proud of my service to my country, and I'm very proud of my country. I personally think the greatest President we ever had was Abraham Lincoln.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf31:20

and I was given an opportunity to uh

General H Norman Schwarzkopf31:23

to recite Lincoln's words and this very American piece of music.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf31:29

and and I did so gladly.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf31:31

and I had a ball doing it.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf31:33

And and I think not because it's me, it's Lincoln's words, it's so American.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf31:38

that if I was on that island, uh I would like to be listening to this.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf31:44

For on the battle ground at Gettysburg this is what he said

General H Norman Schwarzkopf31:53

He said.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf31:56

That from these honour dead

General H Norman Schwarzkopf31:59

We take increased devotion.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf32:02

to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf32:11

That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf32:19

and that this nation

General H Norman Schwarzkopf32:21

under God shall have a new birth of freedom.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf32:27

and that governments

General H Norman Schwarzkopf32:29

Of the people

General H Norman Schwarzkopf32:31

By the people

General H Norman Schwarzkopf32:33

and for the people shall not perish from the earth.

Presenter32:39

My Castaway reading Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address from Aaron Copeland's Lincoln Portrait, played by the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leonard Slatkin.

Presenter32:49

This is where it gets really difficult, because I have to ask you which one of those eight records you would take if you could only take one.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf32:56

What I'd probably do is, I'd just record them all together on one tape and take the tape. You can't do that?

Presenter32:59

You can't do that?

General H Norman Schwarzkopf33:02

Good grief. Well, then I'd I'd probably have to go with the Battlehead of the Republic.

Presenter33:05

Right.

Presenter33:06

And you can take one book other than the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare which are sitting on the beach waiting for you.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf33:12

I know the book I'd take. It would be The Prophet.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf33:15

by Khalil Gebron. It talks about love, it talks about death, it lo talks about business, it talks about marriage. It's a wonderful, wonderful part on children. I love the part on children.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf33:27

And it's so totally inspiring, it kind of just puts it all together just right.

Presenter33:32

And on top of all of that you're allowed a luxury.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf33:35

Mhm. Now, you the the rules were that it would be an inanimate object with probably no socially redeeming graces. And and so therefore I picked my dog.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf33:46

Because my dog is usually inanimate and he has no socially redeeming graces whatsoever. He just lies next to my side.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf33:54

He can be in a

Presenter33:54

He cannot be inanimate. He cannot be inanimate.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf33:57

Well, he's mostly in it. I mean, he just lies there breathing mostly. You know, he's supposed to be he's supposed to be a hunting retriever. He doesn't hunt anything. All he does is eats and sleeps and and, you know, and provides you sort of a lot of love and affection when he lays on your feet.

Presenter34:10

This is devious, this is cheating.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf34:12

Should a professional soldier?

Presenter34:12

Should it professional soldier cheap?

General H Norman Schwarzkopf34:14

I'm complying with the rules completely, now.

Presenter34:17

Okay, I believe you, and I shall say General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Bracketts, retired brackets, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert islander.

General H Norman Schwarzkopf34:25

Thank you. It was a lot of fun.

Speaker 234:33

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.