James Mattis Quotes
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Gains achieved at great cost against our enemy in Afghanistan are reversible.
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Wherever the enemy wants to fight, we will follow him to the ends of the Earth. We'll adapt, we'll train, we'll advise, we'll mentor, and we'll fight, and we'll fight well.
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Sometimes there are no good guys. There are no bad guys. It seems like everybody is in the middle.
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If you can't eat it, shoot it, or wear it, don't bring it.
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While victimhood in America is exalted, I don't think our veterans should join those ranks.
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There is nothing better than getting shot at and missed. It's really great.
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Iran is not an enemy of ISIS; they have a lot to gain from the turmoil that ISIS creates.
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We all recognize that the Mid-east is dissolving into crises, and we know terrorism did not start with 9-11.
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Now from a distance, I look back on what the Corps taught me: to think like men of action, and to act like men of thought!
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There's an urgent need to stop reacting to each immediate vexing issue in isolation. Such response often creates unanticipated second-order effects and even more problems for us.
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Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed... It doesn't give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead.
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You must reward the kind of behavior that you want.
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I have never thought it necessary to patronize the American people.
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For a sitting U.S. president to see our allies as freeloaders is nuts.
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There is no God-given right to victory on the battlefield. You win that through the skill and the devotion, the valor and the ferocity of your troops.
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I don't think the U.S. military is conservative. It's pragmatic.
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To Marines, love of liberty is not an empty phrase... Rather, it's displayed by blood, sweat, and tears for the fallen.
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The Army was always big on Clausewitz, the Prussian; the Navy on Alfred Thayer Mahan, the American; and the Air Force on Giulio Douhet, the Italian. But the Marine Corps has always been more Eastern-oriented. I am much more comfortable with Sun-tzu and his approach to warfare.
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You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway.
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If you read enough biography and history, you learn how people have dealt successfully or unsuccessfully with similar situations or patterns in the past. It doesn't give you a template of answers, but it does help you refine the questions you have to ask yourself.
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Treachery has existed as long as there's been warfare, and there's always been a few people that you couldn't trust.
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I like the enemy knowing there are a few guys like me around.
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Perhaps if you are in support functions waiting on the warfighters to spell out the specifics of what you are to do, you can avoid the consequences of not reading. Those who must adapt to overcoming an independent enemy's will are not allowed that luxury.
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In this age, I don't care how tactically or operationally brilliant you are: if you cannot create harmony - even vicious harmony - on the battlefield based on trust across service lines, across coalition and national lines, and across civilian/military lines, you need to go home, because your leadership is obsolete.