President–Elect Donald Trump has made his selection for Secretary of Defense; General James “Mad Dog” Mattis.
Any general with the nickname “Mad Dog” is all right with me. He is of the real warrior class, not one of the politically-correct Pentagon generals, those who get ahead in rank by becoming political to advance in their careers instead of thinking about the people under their command. The military is for one purpose and one purpose only, to kill people and destroy things, not a social experiment where milquetoast and faint-hearted folks should reside. To the military: your long wait for common sense leadership is just about over. Hoo Rah!
There will be a president who will have the Secretary of Defense’s back in the actions he will decide on in the future. Trump has been making good personnel decisions to populate his cabinet positions, and he will need all the help and experience he can get. He is a businessman and not a politician (thank God!), and treading into political and military waters is not what he does best. He is a “doer,” not a talker without substance. That’s the guy we will be soon be waving goodbye to, President Obama (and good riddance).
“Mad Dog Mattis” is a Marine’s Marine, enlisting in 1969 and was commissioned in 1972. He was not a “ring knocker (those graduating from a service academy) – those who turn into the pampered princes of the upper echelons of military structure. I served under a mustang officer (an enlisted man battlefield commissioned as an officer) who served in World War II and Korea; WWII as infantry, Korea as a pilot. He later was an Air Force officer and my commander. The most thoughtful, respectful, and gracious officer I ever met. There was respect freely given by him and returned from enlisted folks under his command, for his leadership and kind words for a job well done.
Gen. Mattis served until March 2013 as the 11th commander of U.S. CentCom, when Barack Obama forced him into early retirement. After 41 years in Marine leadership, Mattis was not willing to play along with Obama’s political retreat from Iraq, which was directly responsible for the rise of the Islamic State and the humanitarian crisis that followed. That is exactly what Gen. Mattis predicted would happen if Obama took the action he eventually decided upon and Hell was unleashed in the form of more Islamic terror filling the void.
After his retirement ceremony, Mattis planned a cross-country drive back to his home state of Washington, but, according to his colleague, MajGen. Michael Ennis, “The route he chose was dictated by the Gold Star Mothers he had to visit along the way — zig-zagging to get to as many as he could to personally talk to them. He personally wrote hand-written notes to every parent whose son or daughter was killed under his command.”
That, my friends, is a leader, whose heavy burden of ordering people into war zones weighed heavily on him. That’s what leaders do – give the orders, but the good ones also know what that will mean to those having to meet the objectives.
Per Wikipedia, “While serving in Afghanistan as a brigadier general, he was known as an officer who engaged his men with “real leadership.” A young Marine officer named Nathaniel Fick cited an example of that leadership when he witnessed Mattis in a fighting hole talking with a sergeant and lance corporal: “No one would have questioned Mattis if he’d slept eight hours each night in a private room, to be woken each morning by an aide who ironed his uniforms and heated his MREs. But there he was, in the middle of a freezing night, out on the lines with his Marines.”
We are lucky that President-Elect Trump selected General Mattis as Secretary of Defense. May God grant him the steady hand and wisdom to help guide our country through these turbulent times. We need a leader in this position more than ever.
The rotting of the United States from within is slowly, ever so slowly, improving.
Got to love an officer the troops name ”Mad Dog”, to be respected by his troops is the highest honor an officer can receive. Another well written column.