Call Sign Chaos

By; Jim Mattis and Bing West I heard that General Mattis had written a book. After two years of service under President Trump he was dismissed. He was derided as not being a very good General. I caught an interview where he jokingly stated that Trump didn’t think Merle Streep was a good actress either. He felt that put him in a special category. When I requested the book at the Public Library I learned there were 68 ahead of me. Finally it became my turn. I have just finished reading. To my surprise Mr. Trump is never mentioned. In fact he doesn’t even include his service under Trump until the last two pages. At that time he was serving as Secretary of Defense. In his resignation letter he merely stated that the president, of necessity, should have a Secretary whose views were more in tune. I believe the main issue between them was NATO. General Mattis felt a keen responsibility to maintain good relations. Trump’s insistence (quite reasonable in my opinion) that the European nations pay their pledged annual support had proved to put the Alliance in jeopardy. This book primarily relates to his forty years of service in the Marine Corps. During that time he rose to the rank of four star general. He provides valuable insight on how to be an effective leader regardless of the rank achieved. He was a hands on leader, meaning he enjoyed time spent with the troops. It became harder as he rose in rank. Whenever he could he would spend time with them. He led the Marines in Desert Storm, President G.H. Bush’s war to free Kuwait from Iraq. He led them in President Bush’s war against Iraq that defeated the Iraqi Army. He was also involved with fighting in Afghanistan. I will admit I was looking for confirmation of my own thoughts about mismanagement from on high. He discovered that when Saddam Hussein was overthrown that there was not a plan in place to stabilize the country. As a result chaos erupted. The Iraqi Army was dissolved leaving those men without income or status. They went home with their rifles. Jawel el Maliki became the Prime Minister. As a Shia he removed all of the Sunnis from office, the ones who had been in power before. As a result religious strife ensued. It became Mattis’s responsibility to control. He received conflicting orders sending men in to villages and then stopping them when they were about to win. When Obama increased the soldiers by 30,000 in Afghanistan, he announced that they would leave in two years leaving the Taliban with notice that they only had to wait. It also convinced the Afghans that they would be left without support. When Obama drew the red line in the sand about Syria using chemicals on their people, Mattis readied plans to retaliate but no orders were received. The troops were severely handicapped in their ability to engage the enemy for fear of harming civilians. It seems there were lawyers all around checking on them making it nearly impossible to function as an armed force. I have written many times on how Washington has interfered with the military placing handicaps in their way ever since the end of the police action in Korea. I refer to my favorite General MacArthur; he said the object of war is victory. In my opinion it has become a game using real lives as pawns under Republican and Democratic governments. If you read the book I highly recommend the last short chapter entitled Reflection. It contains a great deal of wisdom.