WASHINGTON — On a summer morning in a desolate corner of Iraq’s westerndesert, Jim Mattis learned he’d narrowly evaded an assassination attempt.
A Sunni Arab man had been caught planting a bomb on a road shortly beforeMattis and his small team of Marines passed by. Told the captured insurgentspoke English, Mattis decided to talk to him.
After Mattis offered a cigarette and coffee, the man said he tried to killthe general and his fellow Marines because he resented the foreignersoldiers in his land. Mattis said he understood the sentiment but assuredthe insurgent he was headed for Abu Ghraib, the infamous U.S.-run prison.What happened next explains the point of the story.
“General,” the man asked Mattis, “if I am a model prisoner do you thinksomeday I could emigrate to America?”
In Mattis’ telling, this insurgent’s question showed he felt “the power ofAmerica’s inspiration.” It was a reminder of the value of national unity.
Mattis, now the Pentagon boss and perhaps the most admired member ofPresident Donald Trump’s Cabinet, is a storyteller. And at no time do thetales flow more easily than when he’s among the breed he identifies withmost closely — the men and women of the military.
The anecdote about the Iraqi insurgent, and other stories he recountedduring a series of troop visits shortly before Christmas, are told withpurpose.
“I bring this up to you, my fine young sailors, because I want you toremember that on our worst day we’re still the best going, and we’recounting on you to take us to the next level,” he said. “We’ve never beensatisfied with where America’s at. We’re always prone to looking at the badthings, the things that aren’t working right. That’s good. It’s healthy, solong as we then roll up our sleeves and work together, together, together,to make it better.”
The stories tend to be snippets of Mattis’ personal history, includingmoments he believes illustrate the deeper meaning of military service.
On a trip last month to the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, andthree domestic military installations, Mattis revealed himself in waysrarely seen in Washington, where he has studiously maintained a low publicprofile. With no news media in attendance except one Associated Pressreporter, Mattis made clear during his troop visits that he had not come tolecture or to trade on his status as a retired four-star general.
“Let’s just shoot the breeze for a few minutes,” he said at one point.
Another time he opened with: “My name is Mattis, and I work at theDepartment of Defense.”
Mattis used stories to emphasize that today’s uncertain world means everymilitary member needs to be ready to fight at a moment’s notice.
He recalled the words of a Marine sergeant major when Mattis was just twoyears into his career:
“Every week in the fleet Marine force is your last week of peace,” thesergeant major said. “If you don’t go into every week thinking like this,you’re going to have a sick feeling in the bottom of your stomach when yourNCOs (non-commissioned officers) knock on your door and say, ‘Get up. Getyour gear on. We’re leaving.’”
By leaving, Mattis meant departing for war.
A recurring Mattis theme is that the military operates in a fundamentallyunpredictable world. He recalled how he was hiking with his Marines in theSierra Nevadas in August 1990 when he got word to report with his men tothe nearest civilian airport. Iraq’s Saddam Hussein had just invadedKuwait, and the Marines were needed to hold the line in Saudi Arabia.
In an exchange with Marines at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, Mattisrecalled sitting in the back of a room at the Pentagon in June 2001 whilesenior political appointees of the new George W. Bush administration firedquestions at a military briefer about where they should expect to see themost worrisome security threats. At one point, Mattis said, the briefersaid confidently that amid all the uncertainty, the one place the U.S.definitely would not be fighting was Afghanistan.
“Five and a half months later, I was shivering in Afghanistan,” Mattissaid, referring to his role as commander of Task Force 58, a special groupthat landed in southern Afghanistan aboard helicopters flown from Navyships in the Arabian Sea to attack the Taliban in and around Kandahar.
Regardless how much they resonate with his young audience, Mattis’ storiesillustrate how he sees his military experience as a way to connect withtroops who often feel distant from their political leaders. They also are areminder Mattis’ boss is one of the most politically divisive figures inrecent history.
Speaking to troops and family members at an outdoor movie theater atGuantanamo, Mattis pointed directly to the political battles.
“I’m so happy to be in Guantanamo that I could cry right now, to be out ofWashington,” he said, adding jokingly that he wouldn’t mind spending therest of his tenure away from the capital. He said as soon as he gets backin the company of uniformed troops, he is reminded of why the military canset a standard for civility.
“Our country needs you,” he said, and not just because of the military’sfirepower. “It’s also the example you set for the country at a time itneeds good role models; it needs to look at an organization that doesn’tcare what gender you are, it doesn’t care what religion you are, it doesn’tcare what ethnic group you are. It’s an organization that can worktogether.” – Agencies