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Mattis will become one of a small number of four-star generals in the Marine Corps. Efforts to reach him in Washington, where he has been in a series of meetings, were unsuccessful.

The appointment to the Joint Forces Command is expected to come as early as Nov. 1. `````````` It was not immediately clear how much longer Mattis will serve as the authority over the Haditha case and other cases involving allegedly unlawful slayings in Iraq and Afghanistan.

ping

Any Marine senior officer who has had any part in the sham prosecution of junior Marines should have their promotions frozen, at the very least. They have shown themselves to be politically correct hacks rather than warriors willing to lead men into combat. [Srew] up and move up. That still lives today I see.

Commanding General, I Marine Expeditionary Force; and Commander, U. S. Marine Corps Forces Central Command

Lieutenant General James N. Mattis is currently serving as the Commander, U.S. Marine Corps Forces Central Command and Commanding General, I Marine Expeditionary Force.

As a Lieutenant, he served as a rifle and weapons platoon Commander in the 3d Marine Division. As a Captain, he commanded a rifle company and a weapons company in the 1st Marine Brigade. As a Major, he commanded Recruiting Station Portland. As a Lieutenant Colonel, he commanded 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, one of Task Force Ripper's assault battalions in Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm. As a Colonel, he commanded 7th Marines (Reinforced). As a Brigadier General, he commanded 1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade and then Task Force 58, during Operation Enduring Freedom in southern Afghanistan. As a Major General, he commanded 1st Marine Division during the initial attack and subsequent stability operations in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. As a Lieutenant General, he commanded the Marine Corps Combat Development Command and served as the Deputy Commandant for Combat Development.

He is a graduate of the Amphibious Warfare School, Marine Corps Command and Staff College, and the National War College.

This is a good thing...

Jim Mattis is a WARRIOR. He was a battalion commander in Desert Storm and the CG of the 1st Marine Division in the March Up to Baghdad in 2003. He is the man who said in his final orders to show the Iraqi people they have “no better friend and no worse enemy than a U.S. Marine”... those words will be recorded in stone on a monument some day if they aren’t already.

He was responsible for Al Anbar in 2006 during the heaviest fighting of the insurgency and provided the leadership that helped turn the situation there around to what we see today. He also worked with General Petreous to write the new Joint Doctrine for Counterinsurgency that is being employed now in Iraq... Going to JFCOM means that General Mattis will be able to use his vision and fighting spirit to focus the warfighting doctrine for all the services on the threats posed by GWOT as well as potential conventional enemies. Again this is a good thing.

Y'all been busy this morning; thanks for all the pings and info.

[ from your NCTimes link -- rearranged a little ]:

In line to replace Mattis as head of the 25,000-member I Marine Expeditionary Force is Maj. Gen. Samuel Helland, former commander of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station. Major elements of the expeditionary force are scheduled to deploy to Iraq later this year.

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Helland, the man designated to replace Mattis as commander of the I Marine Expeditionary Force, began his military career in 1968, when he enlisted in the Army. He spent three years in the Army's Special Forces, later joining the Marine Corps and becoming a helicopter pilot in 1974.

In 2004, he assumed a command in Africa and became commander of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Winter in August 2005, a posting he recently left in preparation for his new job.

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The Joint Forces Command, based in Norfolk, Va., maps out battlefield strategies and plans war game exercises. Its Web site describes its job as being "the leader of change within our armed services, ensuring we fight smarter, with fewer resources and less risk."

John Pike, a military expert and founder of the Washington think tank GlobalSecurity.org, said the position Mattis is assuming is a high-visibility post. Pike said Mattis be working with NATO, an alliance of military powers in North America and Europe.

"They are positioning him to figure out how to fight the next war," Pike said Friday during a telephone interview. "This is where they do all the forward-looking thinking by taking lessons learned and how to apply them and figure out whether proposed solutions will work."

The agency conducted a large-scale war exercise in 2002, for example, that served as a practice run for the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, Pike said.

Michael O'Hanlon, a defense and foreign policy expert at Washington's Brookings Institution, said Mattis will be on the cutting edge of military planning.

"General Mattis is regarded as a thoughtful and very creative guy and a lot of the thinking about the nature of future war comes out of war colleges or the Joint Forces Command," said O'Hanlon, whose research organization analyzes government policy on everything from the military to education. "It's the Department of Defense's most important command for those purposes."

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It was not immediately clear how much longer Mattis will serve as the authority over the Haditha case and other cases involving allegedly unlawful slayings in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Would/Can Gen. Mattis retain authority over the Haditha/Hamdania/Fallujah cases? Should he? In my view, yes, but with the machinations taking place behind his back up the chain, I suspect this is a way to get him out of the way to clear the decks for Murtha's Morons to continue/complete their rail-road jobs.

I note Maj. Gen. Helland started out in '68 -- I hazard a guess that he had some exposure to Viet Nam and the political debacle that caused us to withdraw. I suspect that experience will not endear him to the Murthas and Schumers or their ilk.

Be

My

Little

General

oooo!