I don’t know what all his political leanings are, but seems to me a true 'Murican leader willing to speak his mind. Thought Iraq II made no sense, critical of Bush, etc. Note also mention of book discussed in the other thread at 9:07 again. He does not have the temperament to be a politician but seemed a great pick for SECDEF. Anyone read his book? I think I will get the audio book version.
His book Call Sign Chaos? I have read it, it’s a good book. The older he gets the more comfortable he is calling out the BS. If he had qualms about Iraq, he hid them well. He was a great wartime general and a great leader.
Yes, that one. I ordered it as audio book. Was fired by Obama and the orange guy, can’t be all bad. 
I can tell you this, along Route 1, near the Fallujah cloverleaf… it was an awesome site to see Gen. Mattis and his LAV-25 entourage arrive, establish a support-by-fire position and absolutely decimate enemy positions with 25mm fires…. Of which were being directed by Chaos Actual, himself… completely exposed in his TC hatch.
When he says he’s a brawler… he means it. He actively sought out units in TIC and flowed to those contacts.
That memory lives rent free in my brain-housing group.
We were always a few steps behind the grunts so I never saw him in Iraq. But I will never forget him on the top of a M1 giving the 1rst Mar div or a good chunk of it a pep talk a few days before we stepped off. Think it was in Camp Matilda. We had to drive over from the RCT-5 area for it.
It was a pretty awesome sight to see! He had a F-18’s blast overhead right at the finish of the brief.
My fondest memory of Gen. Mattis was when he showed up to TQ where our battalion H&S company was located along with mine (Weapons) and unceremoniously fired our battalion commander, relieved him of his side arm, and shipped his ass out of Iraq. Fired the SgtMaj too.
My platoon was out on a weeks long escort and security detail making sure an Army unit specializing in recovering human remains, a detachment of CB’s, and some Kuwaitis who weren’t supposed to be there remained unmolested while they located and dug up a bunch of dead Kuwaitis. We got back from that hot sandy shit show to find out Lt. Col ****knuckles had been shit canned. It was a glorious day.
Read his book when it was released. He’s probably one of the few good ones.
There’s no doubt he understands the 4 levels of warfare, the operational, strategic, and tactical, unfortunately they are subordinate to the fourth level which is political.
The political level makes everyone at the operational, strategic, and tactical level a pawn.
War is an extension of politics by other means…(and politics is irrational)
Was that in 04? What BN?
I was expecting that to be yet another MSM hit piece on Trump. Imagine my surprise when it was very reasonable.
If he was pissed about Syria, I can’t imagine how he feels about A-Stan.
Glad it was basically only a Mattis fluff piece.
Yes 2004. 3rd Battalion 24th Marines.
Roger that! I was with 3/5 in 04!
Just ordered his book off ebay, it was less than $5 for a used hardcover.
I had the chance to fly him around several times during his tenure as the SecDef. He struck me as a guy who would immediately step forward if America asked him to but wouldn’t do it of his own accord as a politician.
How he feels about Ukraine:
Worth a view:
As the person who had to implement Clinton’s defense strategy, I was not a big fan of Cohn. Even in that video sounds like he’s trying to straddle the line. Mattis’ arguments are more coherent, and make sense. I do agree it’s a very tenuous position to be non-interventionalist and isolationist given how bad actors try to fill a vacuum, how much do we do, what do we do, etc.