Stormin’ Norman Schwarzkopf Hits the Front Lines in Support of Colorado State University’s Animal Cancer Center

Note to Editors: Photos are available either electronically or as transparencies.

Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of Operation Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf, continues to man the front lines in another war–the war against cancer.

Schwarzkopf has taped a series of public service announcements designed to help raise awareness of a new building project to house Colorado State University’s Animal Cancer Center.

Schwarzkopf, himself a cancer survivor, had a beloved dog who died of cancer. In the taped segments, the general appears with another survivor–Murphy, a 7-year-old, 150-pound female Great Dane owned by Colorado veterinarian Robin Downing. Murphy, who underwent successful surgery for bone cancer two years ago, will be the new "poster girl" for the Animal Cancer Center campaign.

The center, which grew out of the Oncology Unit at the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, has pioneered work in limb-sparing therapy for bone cancer, devised dietary improvements to amplify cancer treatment, refined and enhanced the use of chemotherapy and radiation therapy and offered hope to many animal owners who thought they had none left. The Animal Cancer Center is staffed by oncology specialists recognized worldwide for their pioneering research and expertise.

Much of the research and many treatment options developed by Dr. Stephen Withrow, chief of clinical oncology, and his team are directly applicable to humans and have successfully been used to save human lives and limbs.

The public service announcements, taped earlier this month in Telluride, Colo., will begin airing nationally later this year.