Mattis is a dirtbag and has been since the day he refused to send a rescue mission to his fellow marines and only one survived to write the book exposing mattis as the political hack that he is.
Your history is flawed: it wasn’t Marines, it was a SOF team and Afghan soldiers who had been hit by US guided munition. Mattis was clearly not “read in” for the situation and the sole individual reporting the need for a medevac couldn’t tell Gen. Mattis what had happened or what the ground situation was. The distance to the casualties was 45 minutes by helicopter - a long haul by an unescorted hello into a potentially hot zone.
Gen. Mattis had choose to keep his helicopter crews alive, versus throwing them into a long flight into an unknown tactical situation.
Let me know what decisions you make when you make General.
Interesting. Details please.