Clearly one of the most memorable and influential Generals of our time.
I wish more senior leadership in the the Marine Corps/military would be like him.
He was simply a leader and not a politician.
Marines don't need politicians wearing the same uniform as them.
There's enough politicians sitting in nice cushy chairs in D.C. making horrible decisions on their behalf.
What the Marine Corps really needs is a good, solid, and strong leader like General Mattis who won't care about political correctness all the time, and yet have a grace about him that can't help but be admired.
So sad to see such an amazing leader leave the Corps, but the legacy and footprint he's left behind is like no other.
Here's an article written in the Marine Corps Times about him that gives a small snapshot into what kind of man he really was.
MARINE CORPS TIMES
The man. The myths. Mattis
As ‘Chaos’ retires, Marines recall influential general’s defining moments, deep bond with rank and file
By Dan Lamothe - Staff writer
Posted : Sunday Mar 17, 2013 10:16:03 EDT
Gen.
James Mattis held court in the MacDill Air Force Base theater on one of
the last days of his career, speaking to a group of more than 200
service members and civilians. He credited noncommissioned officers with
showing him the ropes early on and warned that the U.S. can’t be sure
what armed conflict it will be engaged in next, but kept the mood light
by mixing in some of his trademark wit.
Asked
what worried him, the general motioned to the stars on his collar and
offered a one-liner evoking the long shadow he casts. “I don’t worry
about stress,” Mattis said, according to a Marine in the room for the
March 8 all-hands meeting in Tampa. “I create it.”
Even
if that quote is off by a word — media wasn’t invited to the event —
it’s this combination of gruffness and humor that has helped make Mattis
the most revered Marine general in at least a generation. Disagree?
Name one other individual who is almost universally praised by everyone
from lance corporals to his fellow four-stars. Name one other leader
whose blunt speech has inspired tattoos, doting Web pages and
tongue-in-cheek calls from admirers for a 2016 presidential campaign —
one that probably would gain traction if Mattis had any interest.
Since
2010, the general known by the call sign “Chaos” has run U.S. Central
Command, overseeing the war in Afghanistan and other military activity
throughout the Middle East. On March 22, nearly 10 years to the day
after he led 1st Marine Division during the ground invasion of Iraq,
Mattis will be replaced by Army Gen. Lloyd Austin and retire. Thus ends
one of the most dynamic careers for a general officer since the late Lt.
Gen. Lewis “Chesty” Puller hung up his uniform in 1955.
Mattis
doesn’t like the attention. He has been cryptic about his future ever
since word surfaced late last year that Austin had been selected to
replace him. During testimony March 5 before the Senate Armed Services
Committee, he offered a typical response to Sen. Lindsey Graham,
R.-S.C., who inquired about the general’s retirement plans.
“I have no idea right now, senator,” he said. “But it’s going to be a lot of fun.”
In a March 14 email to Marine Corps Times, Mattis said he prefers to end his 41-year career quietly.
“I’ve
had some ‘riotous excursions of the human spirit’ alongside the young
Sailors and Marines and it’s time to leave the stage to the young
leaders who got their rank the old-fashioned way — they earned their
stripes in combat,” Mattis said. “The Corps is in good hands, and it’s
been a privilege to serve with the Leathernecks. Now it’s time to go.”
BATTLEFIELD SUCCESS
Mattis
will be remembered in no small part because of his Marines’ battlefield
success. He first became known nationally as a one-star in late 2001,
when the order came from Washington to amass forces for an invasion of
Afghanistan. At the time, he was leading forces through Bright Star, a
multinational training exercise in Egypt.
With
Mattis in charge, the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, out of Camp
Pendleton, Calif., became the framework for Task Force 58, a larger
Marine air-ground task force that also included the 26th MEU, out of
Camp Lejeune, N.C. In the following weeks, Mattis oversaw the deepest
insertion of Marines into a combat zone in U.S. history. More than 1,000
Marines were in Kandahar province within a week of the mission, which
launched Nov. 25, 2001.
“The Marines have landed,” Mattis said, according to embedded reports at the time, “and we now own a piece of Afghanistan.”
The
following year, Mattis prepared to lead 1st MARDIV into Iraq. In late
2002, he deployed with a staff of fewer than 100 to Kuwait and returned
ahead of the March 20, 2003, push over the berm, said Brig. Gen. Paul
Kennedy, then a lieutenant colonel working under the general.
Mattis
pressed his planners to grasp the intricacies of a massive ground
invasion, said Kennedy, now the director of the Division of Public
Affairs at Marine Corps headquarters. Artillery, fuel and other
requirements all would take up space in convoys that would span miles,
Mattis stressed.
Before
deploying, division staff conducted numerous rehearsal drills — some
using Lego blocks to represent units — to assess challenges it would
face. In Kuwait, Mattis had an area bulldozed and turned into a
stadium-sized terrain model, said Col. Mike Groen, another lieutenant
colonel and planner on Mattis’ staff at the time. Rubber tubing served
as roads and cinder blocks as cities. Inside, Marine officers navigated
the labyrinth wearing jerseys to represent their units.
“He
always was a week ahead of everyone else,” said Groen, who is now the
director of the Corps’ strategic initiatives group and was recently
selected for brigadier general. “He would tell you to do something, and
you would scratch your head and say, ‘Hmm, I don’t really understand why
we’re doing this.’ Three, four, five days later, the light bulb would
go off and you would say, ‘Holy smoke, this is what he was talking
about!’ ”
Mattis
also inspired his Marines with a one-page letter that summed up his
commander’s intent. Many kept it tucked away in their body armor, said
Lt. Col. Joseph Plenzler, a captain in 2003 who served as Mattis’ public
affairs officer. The letter included an order that has become a
catchphrase reprinted on bumper stickers, posters and T-shirts all over
the country.
“Demonstrate to the world,” Mattis said, “there is ‘No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy’ than a U.S. Marine.”
FAITH IN HIS PEOPLE
Mattis’
popularity extends beyond his forces’ success, however. For one, he
emphatically showed faith in rank-and-file service members, stressing
that they are key to military success. He’s hardly alone in this regard —
retired Commandant Gen. Charles Krulak developed the “strategic
corporal” concept in the 1990s, among many examples — but Mattis’
propensity for doing so resonates.
In
one lesser-known instance in 2001, then-Brig. Gen. Mattis ordered
Marines to keep their weapons in Condition 1 — magazine inserted, round
in chamber — while deployed for exercise Bright Star, where tensions
were high after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. He counseled a
couple of Marines who didn’t adhere to the order responsibly, but
otherwise relied on the competency of his personnel, said Plenzler, now
the spokesman for Commandant Gen. Jim Amos.
“It blew us away as young officers,” Plenzler said. “There we were, sleeping with loaded pistols under your pillow.”
Mattis
fearlessly traveled the Iraq battlefield in 2003 and 2004, relying on
his “jump platoon” while getting into rolling firefights outside the
wire, said Col. Brennan Byrne, who commanded Camp Pendleton’s 1st
Battalion, 5th Marines, in Iraq under Mattis. At times his unit took
casualties, but he refused to stop checking on how his Marines were
doing.
“He
has imprinted an entire generation of Marines with regard to engaged,
decisive combat leadership,” said Brennan, now the chief of staff for
1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade. “As Marines, we could never have been
better served by his command.”
Mattis’
trust for his troops made its way into the U.S. military doctrine, as
well. After becoming deputy commandant for combat development and
integration, he co-wrote the counterinsurgency manual with now-retired
Army Gen. David Petraeus, who was then a three-star officer overseeing
Army training.
Mattis’
disciples argue to this day that Petraeus unfairly received too much
credit for that work after adopting many of the principles in Iraq.
Kennedy said the initial order Mattis wrote for 1st MARDIV in April 2003
was “Counterinsurgency 101,” urging Marines to treat the Iraqi people
with respect while watching out for their own safety.
“It
is exactly what you see in the current counterinsurgency manual, and
other people have been given credit for it,” Kennedy said.
Mattis
has deflected praise for his role in creating the manual, saying he had
“at best an indirect, perhaps intellectual or training impact” on its
adoption, while Petraeus later adopted it on the ground.
“We
looked for what was working, accumulated it into the doctrine and
passed it out, largely written by NCOs and officers fresh from their
searing experiences in Iraq,” Mattis said.
‘I DIDN’T BRING ARTILLERY …’
There
are, of course, the “Mattis-isms.” That is, the many salty,
inspirational or otherwise eye-opening statements Mattis has uttered —
in combat and in the U.S. — since becoming a senior officer. At times,
they’ve earned him criticism from other senior officers, even as
rank-and-file Marines cheer candor they say reflects the horrors of war.
Take
that proclamation Mattis made after his Marines landed in Afghanistan.
It ruffled feathers in Washington and earned an admonishment from higher
ups. Mattis later contended in a 2006 speech at the Naval Academy that a
journalist left out some context after asking about the turf the
Marines had taken.
“I
said, ‘Well it kind of means we own it. We’re going to give it back to
the Afghan people,’ ” Mattis told the crowd, according to a transcript
of the event. “When the word came out, they left the last part off: [It
was just] I owned a piece of Afghanistan. Well, I don’t have to initiate
a salute with many people, but I think every one of them lined up to
tell me that I would never make it to the top of your class
intellectually, and [they] had other comments about my capabilities.”
It’s
just one example of Mattis’ brash comments raising eyebrows. Most
significantly, he sparked controversy in 2005 while speaking at an open
forum in San Diego.
“You
go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years
because they didn’t wear a veil,” he said. “You know, guys like that
ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to
shoot them. Actually, it’s a lot of fun to fight. You know, it’s a hell
of a hoot. It’s fun to shoot some people. I’ll be right upfront with
you, I like brawling.”
The
remark was rebuked by Commandant Gen. Michael Hagee, and raised
questions as to whether Mattis would be promoted again. There are other
examples, though. Perhaps no quote captured his professional duality —
intellectual thinker, salty commander — better than those in the 2006
book “Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq,” by war
correspondent Thomas Ricks. Meeting with Iraqi military leaders in 2003,
Ricks reported, Mattis offered a chance to collaborate along with a
chilling warning.
“I
come in peace,” he said. “I didn’t bring artillery. But I’m pleading
with you, with tears in my eyes: If you f--- with me, I’ll kill you
all.”
Mattis’
star continued to rise despite the controversies. He was promoted to
his current rank in 2007 when he became the commander of U.S. Joint
Forces Command. It was widely reported he was a finalist to become the
Corps’ commandant in 2010, but he was bypassed in favor of Amos, who
already had served as assistant commandant. Mattis became the head of
CENTCOM instead, keeping a lower profile while traveling the world to
meet with kings, prime ministers and generals.
Ricks
speculated in January that Mattis was originally planning to retire in
August, but was pushed out early by the White House because he thought
the U.S. wasn’t thinking through its long-term policy on Iran clearly
enough. White House officials disputed the report, and Mattis has
declined to discuss what happened.
Still,
perhaps the way Mattis is retiring seals his legacy as the most popular
general in decades. Had he become commandant, he’d have been faced with
a menu of unpopular choices — something Amos and other Marine brass
know all too well. War is hell, but it’s much more difficult for
rank-and-file Marines to embrace their service shrinking before their
eyes.
Gen.
John Kelly, who served as Mattis’ one-star deputy commander during the
invasion of Iraq, told Marine Corps Times that Mattis will go out as a
brilliant commander who insisted on speaking honestly.
“Only
a few guys like them come along per generation,” Kelly said, citing
Gens. Joseph Dunford and John Allen as others. “They are brilliant. They
are dedicated. They are selflessly devoted to their duties. ... They
give their unvarnished opinions and recommendations when asked by their
political masters or the Congress, then salute and, to their deaths,
will carry out the orders they are given. We are less as an institution
when men like these ‘go over the side,’ as we Marines say, ‘for the last
time.’”
Staff writer Gidget Fuentes contributed to this report.
