WEST POINT, N.Y. (AP) -- A memorial service for Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, the no-nonsense Desert Storm commander famously nicknamed "Stormin' Norman," has begun in the U.S. Military Academy's gothic chapel.

His family and friends joined Kuwaiti officials, U.S. dignitaries, gray clad cadets and a detail of New Jersey state troopers, a nod to his father, who founded that police agency.

Schwarzkopf will be buried at West Point near his father, Col. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, later Thursday.

Schwarzkopf graduated from the academy in 1956, served in Vietnam and commanded the U.S.-led international coalition that drove Saddam Hussein's forces out of Kuwait in 1991. He was 78 when he died in Tampa on Dec. 27 of complications from pneumonia.