Gen.James Mattis to serve as President-elect Trump’s Defense Secretary
President-elect Donald Trump, has tapped former Tampa based Gen. James “Mad Dog.” Mattis to be his secretary of Defense. Mattis ran U.S. Central Command from 2010 to 2013.
CENTCOM is based at MacDill where Gen. Maatis was responsible for American military activities in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
Mattis retired from the Marines in 2013. He fought in the war in Afghanistan and both American wars in Iraq. In 2003, he sent a now widely circulated letter to the Marines in his 1st Division the day before Americans invaded Iraq.
Gen. Mattis, will require an act of Congress to bypass a federal law that bars members of the military from serving as Defense secretary within seven years of their active duty, the Washingtob Post reported.
Like Trump, Mattis favors a tougher stance against U.S. adversaries abroad, especially Iran. The general, speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in April, said that while security discussions often focus on terrorist groups such as the Islamic State or al-Qaeda, the Iranian regime is “the single most enduring threat to stability and peace in the Middle East.”
Mattis made headlines at a series of prominent commands with blunt talk that appealed to troops and left no doubt about his approach to war. After leading troops in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, he told an audience in San Diego in 2005 that he relished fighting.
“Actually it’s quite fun to fight them, you know. It’s a hell of a hoot,” Mattis said. “It’s fun to shoot some people. I’ll be right up there with you. I like brawling. 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. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.”
Those remarks earned him a rebuke from his superiors but didn’t stop his ascent to the military’s most prestigious and taxing posts. Known as the “Warrior Monk,” Mattis also cultivates a bookish reputation.
Some quotes in this story came from ASSOCIATED PRESS and CNN.
