Music to His Ears

While Iraqis were kept awake nights by the pounding of allied bombs, the commander of U.S. forces in the Gulf was lulled to sleep by SOOTHING RAINFALL AND OTHER NATURE SOUNDS. The peaceful noises, on a cassette tape titled “Storm on a Wilderness Lake,” were a gift to Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf from Justin Chapman, an insurance salesman and inventor in Mason City, Iowa. “Needless to say, I am surprised and thrilled by your gift,” Schwarzkopf wrote to Chapman. “I listen to the tape every night before I go to bed.” Chapman said he often listens to the tape when he can’t sleep and figured Schwarzkopf might find it useful under wartime circumstances.