A Marine Christmas Story
12-03-2016, 05:09 AM
#1
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A Marine Christmas Story
I have read extensively about all things military and too many biographies of famous military leaders throughout history to count. I've heard a lot of stories both good and bad, but I have never, ever heard a story like this one...
A couple of months ago, when I told General Krulak, the former Commandant of the Marine Corps, now the chair of the Naval Academy Board of Visitors, that we were having General James Mattis speak this evening, he said, “Let me tell you a Jim Mattis story.”
Starting about a week before Christmas every year while he was Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Krulak and his wife would bake hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Christmas cookies. They would package them in small bundles.
Then, on Christmas day, he would load his vehicle. Starting about 4 a.m., General Krulak would drive himself to every Marine guard post in the Washington-Annapolis-Baltimore area and deliver a small package of Christmas cookies to whatever Marines were pulling guard duty that day.
"One year", he went on, "I had gone down to Quantico as one of my stops to deliver Christmas cookies to the Marines on guard duty. I went to the command center and gave a package to the lance corporal who was on duty."
He asked, “Who’s the officer of the day?” The lance corporal said, “Sir, it’s Brigadier General Mattis.” And General Krulak said, “No, no, no. I know who General Mattis is. I mean, who’s the officer of the day today, Christmas day?” The lance corporal, getting a little anxious, said, “Sir, it is Brigadier General Mattis.”
Still not believing what he had just heard, Krulak spotted a cot in the back room behind the Corporal. He said, “No, Lance Corporal. Who slept in that bed last night?” The lance corporal said, “Sir, it was Brigadier General Mattis.”
Just then, Krulak went on, General Mattis came in. He was in a pressed, clean duty uniform with a sword.
Gen. Krulak said, “Jim, what are you doing here on Christmas day? Why do you have the duty?”
“Sir", Mattis replied, "I looked at the duty roster for today and there was a young major who had it who is married and had a family, and I’m a bachelor. I thought why should the major miss out on the fun of having Christmas with his family, and so I took the duty for him."
- As told by Dr. Albert C. Pierce, the Director of the Center for the Study of Professional Military Ethics at The United States Naval Academy.
A Brigadier General of 35+ years service (at that time), taking the OOD duty for an O-4 so that man could spend Christmas day with his family.
And the incoming POTUS just named Mattis as the new SecDef.
Merry Christmas America!
A couple of months ago, when I told General Krulak, the former Commandant of the Marine Corps, now the chair of the Naval Academy Board of Visitors, that we were having General James Mattis speak this evening, he said, “Let me tell you a Jim Mattis story.”
Starting about a week before Christmas every year while he was Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Krulak and his wife would bake hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Christmas cookies. They would package them in small bundles.
Then, on Christmas day, he would load his vehicle. Starting about 4 a.m., General Krulak would drive himself to every Marine guard post in the Washington-Annapolis-Baltimore area and deliver a small package of Christmas cookies to whatever Marines were pulling guard duty that day.
"One year", he went on, "I had gone down to Quantico as one of my stops to deliver Christmas cookies to the Marines on guard duty. I went to the command center and gave a package to the lance corporal who was on duty."
He asked, “Who’s the officer of the day?” The lance corporal said, “Sir, it’s Brigadier General Mattis.” And General Krulak said, “No, no, no. I know who General Mattis is. I mean, who’s the officer of the day today, Christmas day?” The lance corporal, getting a little anxious, said, “Sir, it is Brigadier General Mattis.”
Still not believing what he had just heard, Krulak spotted a cot in the back room behind the Corporal. He said, “No, Lance Corporal. Who slept in that bed last night?” The lance corporal said, “Sir, it was Brigadier General Mattis.”
Just then, Krulak went on, General Mattis came in. He was in a pressed, clean duty uniform with a sword.
Gen. Krulak said, “Jim, what are you doing here on Christmas day? Why do you have the duty?”
“Sir", Mattis replied, "I looked at the duty roster for today and there was a young major who had it who is married and had a family, and I’m a bachelor. I thought why should the major miss out on the fun of having Christmas with his family, and so I took the duty for him."
- As told by Dr. Albert C. Pierce, the Director of the Center for the Study of Professional Military Ethics at The United States Naval Academy.
A Brigadier General of 35+ years service (at that time), taking the OOD duty for an O-4 so that man could spend Christmas day with his family.
And the incoming POTUS just named Mattis as the new SecDef.
Merry Christmas America!
Last edited by SayAlt; 12-03-2016 at 05:20 AM.
12-07-2016, 03:22 AM
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Looking at the real James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis
“The media take Trump literally, but not seriously. Voters take him seriously, but not literally.” This, by Salena Zito, was the smartest thing written about the 2016 election and deserves a place in every dictionary of quotations.
Now let me give you some advice about General James Mattis, who will almost certainly be President Trump’s secretary of defense. Take him both literally and seriously.
General Mattis is a dictionary of quotes in his own right. I especially like the way he meets and greets. “I come in peace. I didn’t bring artillery. But I’m pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: If you [expletive] with me, I’ll kill you all.” With Mattis, however, you get much more than just words. You get deeds.
As the commander of the First Marine Division in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Mattis earned a daunting reputation as a master of kinetic warfare. During the push to Baghdad, he relieved one of his sub-unit commanders for not advancing fast enough. In 2007 he coauthored, with David Petraeus, the “Counterinsurgency Field Manual,” the template for the successful “surge” in Iraq. So fond of combat was Mattis that the Marines’ affectionate nickname for him was “Mad Dog.”
Full disclosure: Jim Mattis and I are both fellows of Stanford’s Hoover Institution. I admire him and consider him a friend. In person, he is neither deranged nor canine, but softly spoken and erudite. Mattis is not only a fearsome warrior; he is also a deep strategic thinker, a soldier-scholar in the mold of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, whose “Meditations” he carried with him in Iraq and Afghanistan. You might have expected such an inspired appointment to receive a warm welcome. Dream on. The liberal media, humiliated by Trump’s triumph, have sought to misrepresent his transition as chaotic. As it happens, General Mattis’s nom de guerre was “Chaos.” In both cases, it is the kind of chaos you inflict on your enemies. Trump is not reenacting Celebrity Apprentice. He is assembling what would once have been called “a ministry of all the talents.”
True, the choice of Mattis is unorthodox. He will be the first general to run the Pentagon since Harry Truman appointed George Marshall, in 1950. All other secretaries of defense have been civilians. Trump has decided to ignore that convention, as well as to ask Congress to waive the rule that a general must spend seven years in retirement before he can take the job. Cue raised eyebrows. But I think this is the best decision Trump has taken since his historic election victory.
Here’s why. As president, Trump has the enticing opportunity to fix America’s broken foreign policy. His proposed “great deal” with Putin could end the war in Syria and resolve the not-so-frozen conflict in eastern Ukraine. A comparable deal with China could address the economic grievances of Middle America while creating a new basis for peaceful coexistence with the Middle Kingdom, addressing key flashpoints in the Asia-Pacific region such as North Korea and the South China Sea. The Trump presidency can also change the game in the Middle East by abandoning the Obama administration’s ill-conceived tilt toward Iran. And it can jolt continental Europeans out of their complacency, so that NATO ceases to be an alliance paid for by Americans and taken for granted by Germans.
However, to achieve all this will require more than Kissingerian diplomatic skill. It will also need the credible threat of force — for without that, America’s enemies and allies alike will take advantage of the businessman Trump just as they took advantage of the law professor Obama. This is where Jim Mattis comes in.
First, Mattis has unrivalled credibility. It is not only Marines who love the man. Even Michèle Flournoy, who likely would have had his job if Hillary Clinton had won, speaks of him with reverence.
Second, Mattis is a hawk on Iran. Indeed, some say it was his readiness to contemplate military action against Iran that led to his being sacked from CENTCOM by Obama. He is unrepentant. In a lecture in April 2016, he called the Tehran regime “the single most enduring threat to stability and peace in the Middle East.” Nevertheless, he also argued against ripping up Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. Mattis will advise Trump to keep the agreement, but punish Iranian breaches of it with military retaliation. He will also propose tougher action against Iranian regional proxies, notably Hezbollah.
Third, unlike Trump, Mattis has no illusions about Putin. He spoke out against the Russian invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine in 2014, and has implicitly criticized the Obama administration for not being tough enough.
Finally, Mattis has a playbook for the Chinese, too. In his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, in 2015, he stated that “efforts in the Pacific to keep positive relations with China” must be “paralleled by a policy to build the counterbalance if China continues to expand its bullying role in the South China Sea and elsewhere.”
Theodore Roosevelt’s mantra was to “speak softly and carry a big stick.” Under Obama, the United States has lectured loudly and carried a limp twig. All that is about to change. Unlike Donald Trump, Jim Mattis speaks softly. And that big stick he carries is sharp, too. Take him literally. Take him very, very seriously.
“The media take Trump literally, but not seriously. Voters take him seriously, but not literally.” This, by Salena Zito, was the smartest thing written about the 2016 election and deserves a place in every dictionary of quotations.
Now let me give you some advice about General James Mattis, who will almost certainly be President Trump’s secretary of defense. Take him both literally and seriously.
General Mattis is a dictionary of quotes in his own right. I especially like the way he meets and greets. “I come in peace. I didn’t bring artillery. But I’m pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: If you [expletive] with me, I’ll kill you all.” With Mattis, however, you get much more than just words. You get deeds.
As the commander of the First Marine Division in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Mattis earned a daunting reputation as a master of kinetic warfare. During the push to Baghdad, he relieved one of his sub-unit commanders for not advancing fast enough. In 2007 he coauthored, with David Petraeus, the “Counterinsurgency Field Manual,” the template for the successful “surge” in Iraq. So fond of combat was Mattis that the Marines’ affectionate nickname for him was “Mad Dog.”
Full disclosure: Jim Mattis and I are both fellows of Stanford’s Hoover Institution. I admire him and consider him a friend. In person, he is neither deranged nor canine, but softly spoken and erudite. Mattis is not only a fearsome warrior; he is also a deep strategic thinker, a soldier-scholar in the mold of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, whose “Meditations” he carried with him in Iraq and Afghanistan. You might have expected such an inspired appointment to receive a warm welcome. Dream on. The liberal media, humiliated by Trump’s triumph, have sought to misrepresent his transition as chaotic. As it happens, General Mattis’s nom de guerre was “Chaos.” In both cases, it is the kind of chaos you inflict on your enemies. Trump is not reenacting Celebrity Apprentice. He is assembling what would once have been called “a ministry of all the talents.”
True, the choice of Mattis is unorthodox. He will be the first general to run the Pentagon since Harry Truman appointed George Marshall, in 1950. All other secretaries of defense have been civilians. Trump has decided to ignore that convention, as well as to ask Congress to waive the rule that a general must spend seven years in retirement before he can take the job. Cue raised eyebrows. But I think this is the best decision Trump has taken since his historic election victory.
Here’s why. As president, Trump has the enticing opportunity to fix America’s broken foreign policy. His proposed “great deal” with Putin could end the war in Syria and resolve the not-so-frozen conflict in eastern Ukraine. A comparable deal with China could address the economic grievances of Middle America while creating a new basis for peaceful coexistence with the Middle Kingdom, addressing key flashpoints in the Asia-Pacific region such as North Korea and the South China Sea. The Trump presidency can also change the game in the Middle East by abandoning the Obama administration’s ill-conceived tilt toward Iran. And it can jolt continental Europeans out of their complacency, so that NATO ceases to be an alliance paid for by Americans and taken for granted by Germans.
However, to achieve all this will require more than Kissingerian diplomatic skill. It will also need the credible threat of force — for without that, America’s enemies and allies alike will take advantage of the businessman Trump just as they took advantage of the law professor Obama. This is where Jim Mattis comes in.
First, Mattis has unrivalled credibility. It is not only Marines who love the man. Even Michèle Flournoy, who likely would have had his job if Hillary Clinton had won, speaks of him with reverence.
Second, Mattis is a hawk on Iran. Indeed, some say it was his readiness to contemplate military action against Iran that led to his being sacked from CENTCOM by Obama. He is unrepentant. In a lecture in April 2016, he called the Tehran regime “the single most enduring threat to stability and peace in the Middle East.” Nevertheless, he also argued against ripping up Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. Mattis will advise Trump to keep the agreement, but punish Iranian breaches of it with military retaliation. He will also propose tougher action against Iranian regional proxies, notably Hezbollah.
Third, unlike Trump, Mattis has no illusions about Putin. He spoke out against the Russian invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine in 2014, and has implicitly criticized the Obama administration for not being tough enough.
Finally, Mattis has a playbook for the Chinese, too. In his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, in 2015, he stated that “efforts in the Pacific to keep positive relations with China” must be “paralleled by a policy to build the counterbalance if China continues to expand its bullying role in the South China Sea and elsewhere.”
Theodore Roosevelt’s mantra was to “speak softly and carry a big stick.” Under Obama, the United States has lectured loudly and carried a limp twig. All that is about to change. Unlike Donald Trump, Jim Mattis speaks softly. And that big stick he carries is sharp, too. Take him literally. Take him very, very seriously.
12-13-2016, 11:52 AM
#4
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Military nicknames and callsigns often have double meanings, known only to insiders. "CHAOS" sounds pretty badass, and it is in the obvious sense.
But the real meaning was...
Colonel
Has
Another
Outstanding
Suggestion
Mattis is an innovator and experimenter, among other things, and the Chaos reference had to do with the frequent disruption of the routine caused by his ideas while commanding a maneuver unit. Generals are likely, even expected, to innovate but at the battalion or regiment level folks are more accustomed to simply executing published doctrine with vigor. They may not appreciate extra work in the interest of trying new things (in their defense, they have a lot to do as it is, and the military has special units which conduct experiments).
But the real meaning was...
Colonel
Has
Another
Outstanding
Suggestion
Mattis is an innovator and experimenter, among other things, and the Chaos reference had to do with the frequent disruption of the routine caused by his ideas while commanding a maneuver unit. Generals are likely, even expected, to innovate but at the battalion or regiment level folks are more accustomed to simply executing published doctrine with vigor. They may not appreciate extra work in the interest of trying new things (in their defense, they have a lot to do as it is, and the military has special units which conduct experiments).
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