The general and the phantom

Over the past week the late Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf, commander of coalition forces in the first – and more explainable – Gulf War, has been mourned, toasted and remembered as a hero. Heroes in the early 1990s, as now, were in short supply. And Stormin’ Norman fit the bill.

His role in liberating an essentially defenseless Kuwait from the clutches of Saddam Hussein was easily understood in terms of the bigger picture, and he earned a reputation – like Eisenhower, MacArthur and other military greats – of being a soldier’s soldier, a leader who earned the respect of those beneath him by showing respect himself.

He is also the subject of a private memory cherished by someone in Houma, whose connection with Schwartzkopf – although brief – centers not around anything military, but rather a Broadway musical.

Marty Authement, who lives in Houma, never served under Schwartzkopf or anyone else military. But in 1993, when he was studying journalism at Nicholls State University, Marty was quite aware of Schwartzkopf’s role in history when the ink on its pages concerning the Gulf War was still wet.

Marty, who now operates a rather unique charter fishing service called Marsh Madness, had a fire in the belly for journalism, as he does for being on the water. But he also was and still is a student of the theater.

And so on March 18, 1993, he found himself in New York City, in the Theater District, to see a musical he holds dear to this very day, Phantom of the Opera.

“It’s still my favorite,” Marty said last week, while relating his memory of that night.

The show turned out to be only one of the highlights for Marty during that trip to the Big Apple.

The other had to do with someone else in the audience.

There were whispers in the crowd, before the show began, about how a special person was in the audience, down in the really good seats from which you can see everything.

The casually dressed man was none other than the hero of Operation Desert Storm, Stormin’ Norman himself, and Marty, who is not easily star-struck, was thrilled.

“I was further back and I recognized him, and had heard the people around me saying things. But it seemed like nobody was going to go up and talk to him,” said Marty, who has never let ceremony stand in the way of a brush with greatness. “Nobody was talking to him so I said I am going to go talk to him.”

And so Marty did.

“I told him I was proud to meet him and I was appreciative for all he had done. It was a brief encounter. But he was someone I looked up to,” Marty said, describing his trip to the theater as a “doubly special night.”

For Marty, it all had less to do with specifics of what Schwartzkopf accomplished in Kuwait and Iraq, a topic still debated to some degree in the historical accounts.

“He was the American ideal,” Marty said. “He stood for democracy and freedom and doing the right thing, he was the embodiment of all that at the time. It was an honor to meet him. He had that sort of persona. The people you see on television they seem larger than life and he definitely fit that category. Though he was not an extremely large man. He was just an average-sized man but there was a presence to him. Some people give you an impression of being special and yes, he was one of those special people. When you walked away you know you had met someone. You knew you had just talked to someone special.”

Marty doesn’t remember Schwartzkopf’s exact words, but recalls that the general, wearing dress pants and a button-up shirt, was incredibly humble.

“He was genuinely appreciative he was being noticed,” said Marty, who asked Schwartzkopf to sign his Phantom of the Opera program. The general obliged immediately and Marty still has the program. With the signing done, Marty returned to his seat but found he had started a trend. Others had queued up to shake the general’s hand, continuing to do so until the curtain’s rise.

Marty first learned of Schwartzkopf’s passing through a Facebook post, which of course reminded him of the night they met.

“I was surprised,” Marty said. “I did not realize that he was of that age or that health was an issue. I was sad. Because we really haven’t had that many true heroes and he fit in that category. There was a sense of loss.”