Posted on 12/02/2016 12:27:23 AM PST by vannrox
Just before Marine Gen. James 'Mad Dog' Mattis was getting ready to deploy with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force to Iraq in early 2004, one of his colleagues asked him about the importance of reading for military officers who sometimes found themselves "too busy to read."
The legendary general sometimes referred to as "The Warrior Monk" carted around a personal library of 6,000 books with him everywhere, and he had plenty to say on the topic. His response went viral over email, in the days before Facebook and Twitter.
Military historian Jill R. Russell unearthed the email and posted it to the blog "Strife" by King's College, London in 2013. With Mattis in the running as a possible choice for President-elect Donald Trump's Defense Secretary, it's worth re-reading again, as it offers keen insight into the mind of Mattis.
Here's what he wrote, on Nov. 20, 2003:
"… The problem with being too busy to read is that you learn by experience (or by your men’s experience), i.e. the hard way. By reading, you learn through others’ experiences, generally a better way to do business, especially in our line of work where the consequences of incompetence are so final for young men.
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 (successfully or unsuccessfully) before. It doesn’t give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead. READ THE REST AT THE LINK.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Go Mad Dog!
BUMP!
“I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed.”
Let’s hope he’s read Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals”. Progressive elitist bigots may come after him with a ferocity greater than any enemy he’s known.
Know your enemy.
Imagine that: a general who puts the lives of his soldiers first and reads war history books to gain the knowledge to make decisions for their protection
Am so impressed and proud of this choice!
good link HM.. thanks for linking it to the transition threads
The transition thread has not been posted when I pinged to this one. Just seemed a logical way to call more attention to the brainy side of the choice.
May be the best team ever assembled. Definitely will shatter all ceilings! So proud of all choices thus far.
“Rommel, you magnificent bastard! I read your book! “
George C. Scott as Patton.
Bookmark.
Bookmark
I remember reading that during the Gulf War Gen. Schwartzkopf also studied Rommel’s “Infantry Attacks.”
>>I remember reading that during the Gulf War Gen. Schwartzkopf also studied Rommel’s “Infantry Attacks.”
I vividly remember an interview with Schwartzkopf in the command bunker during GWI. He had a very spartan room with a single bed and a desk. On the desk was a copy of Maj. Gen. F. W. Von Mellenthin’s classic Panzer Battles: A Study of the Employment of Armor in the Second World War. I remembered the vignette so well because I had the book since I was a very young, having gotten it via the Military Book Club when I was probably 13 or so.
The top brass in our military are generally very well educated. Most of them have been through one of the three service academies for undergraduate, something like the Army’s Command and General Staff College which is a like a Master’s degree, the Army’s War College or similar, and perhaps an additional graduate degree from a civilian institution.
He's a poet warrior in the classic sense, man!
“I will cc my ADC in the event he can add to this. He is the only officer I know who has read more than I.”
God loves a humble man.
Not to equate football to war, but Russell Wilson was saying in an interview how his dad would always be presenting problems to him to foresee - and think about how you would react to them. In both football and life. It sounded like it was ALL the time - riding in the car, meals, etc.
I’m guessing that was ultimately what the General was/is learning to do. Thinking ahead of time on what his decisions would be, based on the success and failures of others.
I tried to tell my kids that in a vague sense (Okay - just think a few steps ahead of when you make a choice). But it would have been better to make them more concrete - and ALL the time.
“So what will you do when you are offered a drink, pot, sex, etc.)
[“I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed.”]
Let’s hope the first Book MAD DOG reaches for is the BIBLE.
2 TIMOTHY 3:16
All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.
Currently I am reading a biography of Peter the Great. Reading was one of his passions. Especially about war and tactics. In the place I am reading now, Peter is seeing his heir for the worthless piece he is and has given him an ultimatum, Tighten up and learn or join a monastery.
After reaching the 3/4 mark in this 800+ page book, I can see a lot of Peter the Great in Putin. Hopefully, what I think I see in Pres-Elect Trump is the same stuff.
Highly recommend this book.
[I remember reading that during the Gulf War Gen. Schwartzkopf also studied Rommel’s “Infantry Attacks.]
DEPLORABLES are going to have to study COUPONS to win the ANTI-TRUMP BREITBART war. Boycott is up to 223,703 with another 47 ANTI-TRUMP companies fighting back. It looks like the boycott is growing 1,000 + every 15 minutes.
http://www.breitbart.com/dumpkelloggs/
The LIBS tried this on RUSH LIMBAUGH, and where did it get them? We DEPLORABLES may be expanding the economy by purchasing products from generic companies.
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