General H. Norman Schwarzkopf

Yesterday Kai showed me the bio of this famous US General

General H. Norman Schwarzkopf

all info taken from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Schwarzkopf%2C_Jr.

Some interesting extracts

One of the most remarkable incidents in a very distinguished career happened on his second tour in Vietnam in March 1970. When Schwarzkopf received word that men under his command had encountered a minefield on the notorious Batangan Peninsula, he rushed to the scene in his helicopter, as was his custom while a battalion commander, in order to make his helicopter available. He found several soldiers still trapped in the minefield. Schwarzkopf urged them to retrace their steps slowly. Still, one man tripped a mine and was severely injured but remained conscious. As the wounded man flailed in agony, the soldiers around him feared that he would set off another mine. Schwarzkopf, also injured by the explosion, crawled across the minefield to the wounded man and held him down (he was a wrestler at West Point, so he used a "pinning" technique in the process), so another could splint his shattered leg. One soldier stepped away to break a branch from a nearby tree to make the splint. In doing so, he too hit a mine, killing himself and the two men closest to him, and blowing an arm and a leg off Schwarzkopf's artillery liaison officer.

His Quotes

* "True courage is being afraid, and going ahead and doing your job."[citation needed]
* "When placed in command -- take charge."[citation needed]
* "The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it."[citation needed]
* "Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy."[citation needed]
* "Any soldier worth his salt should be anti-war. And yet there are things still worth fighting for."[citation needed]
* "Do what is right, not what you think the high headquarters wants or what you think will make you look good."[citation needed]
* "To show you what a difference retirement makes. Last year when I gave an order, 541,000 men and women jumped," he explained. "Now I can't even get the plumber to come over."[citation needed]
* "As far as Saddam Hussein being a great military strategist, he is neither a strategist, nor is he schooled in the operational arts, nor is he a tactician, nor is he a general, nor is he a soldier. Other than that he's a great military man I want you to know that."[citation needed]
* "It doesn't take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle"
* "If there is grass on the field, play it."

* MY FAVOURITE !!!
"I believe that forgiving them is God's function. Our job is to arrange the meeting."