Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf Sr.

Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf was born 28 August 1895 in Newark, New Jersey, and went by his middle name. He graduated from Barringer High School and went to West Point, where the cadets called him Schwarzie, and graduated 88th of 139 in the class of 1917. He was commissioned in the cavalry and went to France with the American Expeditionary Forces. There he was gassed, which left his lungs weak for the rest of his life. His German made him useful as a provost marshal in the occupation.

In 1921 Governor Edward Edwards made him the first superintendent of the New Jersey State Police. He trained its first troopers himself and ran it for fifteen years. On the night of 1 March 1932 he was called to the Lindbergh house at East Amwell after the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh's infant son, and he led the investigation that ended with the arrest of Bruno Hauptmann in 1934. Governor Harold Hoffman dismissed him in 1936. For a time he narrated the radio programme Gang Busters.

He went back into federal service with the 44th Division in September 1940 and briefly commanded the 57th Infantry Brigade. In 1942 he was sent to Iran to organise its national gendarmerie after the British and Soviet occupation, and received the Distinguished Service Medal for it. His son Norman, then twelve, followed him to Tehran in 1946. After the war he was promoted to brigadier general and served as provost marshal for the American zone of occupied Germany. In 1953, before he retired a major general, he was sent to Iran again in the operation that returned the Shah to power.

He married Ruth Alice Bowman, a nurse from West Virginia. Their son, H. Norman Schwarzkopf, went to West Point as his father had and commanded the coalition in the Gulf War.