General James Mattis 40 years in the U.S. Marine Corps
ok all set whenever you are ready sir
alright Marionette Young asked me a question about
the toughest
decision that i've ever had to make while I was in the Marine Corps
Do you regret the decision and would I have done anything differently?
You know Marionette when we go in to the Marine Corps
we swear to obey orders and carry them out
to the best of our ability and defend the constitution
so I've not regret those decisions and one of the toughest that I could mention to you
was after being ordered to attack in to the city of Fallujah
I was ordered to halt the attack deep inside the city
and during that first and ultimately aborted attack ordered to withdraw our Marines and
Sailors out of the city that had fought for
they had lost some of their buddies in that fight
it was a difficult decision it was a decision taken for reasons that had
nothing to do with the tactical situation on the ground
I was concerned to a degree if the Marines would lose confidence in their
leadership but they didn't
I still recall a young SAW (squad automatic weapons) gunner being interviewed
by a television crew
talking about how terrible he must feel being ordered out of the city and he was a slow
talking
Marine from down south and he just calmly look in the the camera and said
Doesn't matter. We'll just hunt 'em down somewhere else and kill 'em
and I bring this up because ultimately it about the spirit of the Marine
Corps that nothing
nothing really can stop us and we just don't take refuge or self-pity
or any of that kind of stuff so as a result the Marine Corps remains a
very feared organization in this world as it should be
and so tough decisions tough times and sometimes things don't go our way
doesn't have anything to do with the decision we've made on how we feel about it
every Marine makes their own decision on how they are going to react to what happens to
them
and that sets the Marine Corps apart because when the time get tough the Marines get tougher
Phil Clayborne wants to know how do I continued to stay motivated throughout my Marine Corps
career
that's real easy I will tell you right up front that were some
jobs in the Marine Corps I didn't cared for I learned to hate minefields at age 21
when the Marine Corps trained me as second lieutenant in the infantry that go thru them
and I continued to hate minefields long as I had to encounter them throughout my career
but the reason I stuck around the Marine Corps was the spirit of the Marines
I knew I can make a lot more money doing something else
and I know I can live a lot better quality of life
and not be deployed all the time but it was spirit of the Marines that kept
me motivated I never went to work feeling like "Woe is
me," that "Life is tough" -- or anything else I look forward to it everyday and it's simply
because I've stuck around the Marine Corps for the right reason.
and that was to serve alongside young Marines
Joel Delf wants to know how do you keep improving as a leader
to meet the demand of each role in your career you all get promoted
you have different role to play how do you stay teachable as a leader
I think the most important thing here is that you have to assume you must keep improving
if you make that your decision you must improve if you look at every week in the Marine Corps
as your last week of peace and you must be better at the end of this week as a warfighter
then you'll push yourself on your 3 mile run down to 18 minutes
and you'll accept no excuses you'll push yourself to 21 pull-ups and you'll
accept no excuses you'll push yourself to read The Commandant's
Reading List you'll push yourself when the things are going
tough in the field and you spirit up and you are the man everyone can turned to knowing
that you don't give up and you just keep improving everyday with
the assumption that you are gonna lead more Marines in the future as you get promoted
they expect you to be the physically toughest the mentally sharpest and spiritually just
the most undiminished person
that nothing not cold not rain not enemy situation not frustration rules can get you down
and you just maintain this body mind and spirit improvement at all time
you stay teachable most by reading books by reading what other people went through
I can't tell you the number of times I look down and what was going down on the ground
or I was engaged in a fight somewhere and I knew within a couple of minutes how I was
going to screw up the enemy and I knew it because I've done so much reading
I knew what I was going to do cause I've seen other similar situation in
the reading I know how they've been dealt with successfully
or unsuccessfully as long as you continue along this line
as long as you remember somebody on the other side is watching
hoping that you are not on the top of your game
and that you are not reading you are not working out
you are not strong spiritually
then they are gonna think that they've got you
you want to always be the toughest the sharpest
out there
I've got a question here from Raul, J.R., from Camp Rhino in 2001. It was in southern
Afghanistan, right after 9/11, Raul, when you and I were out there. And you ask about
a cold night in Afghanistan when I was walking the perimeter by myself, greeting a bunch
of young marines and: What was I thinking about?
Well, I think I remember the night in question. If you'll recall, the mortars were firing
in one direction and we had a lot of shooting going on at one side of the perimeter. And
the reason they keep some of us grey-haired guys around is because it's not our first
war; it's not our second war. And what I was doing was walking to the opposite side of
the perimeter just suspicious if the enemy was perhaps feinting on one side and they
were actually going to attack over on your side of the perimeter.
So I was over there knowing full well that the marines at the position we were being
attacked would handle the enemy. I wanted to make certain we were ready for any surprises.
So I was over there just checking on the marines, seeing how they're doing, and all of whom
wanted to get over to the other side of the perimeter, get in the fight. And I said, "Oh,
you boys just stay right here. There'll be plenty of fighting before this is done." So
that's what I was thinking about that night, Raul, and thanks for being out there. It was
a cold night. Prompt: Jonathan Herrera [ph] wants to know:
What is the one leadership lesson you learned as a general grade officer that you would
wished you had known your whole career?
You know, you learn all the way through, Jonathan. At each rank you're learning more, and if
there was one lesson that came more and more into focus over the years, it was one I learned
by watching similar-sized units. Like for example, I watched dozens of platoons go through
certain ranges; or I saw companies, dozens of companies, in fights. I always wondered
what made one unit better than another. They were all well-trained. They all came through
the boot camp. All of them --All of them had been recruited from America and they were
quality young men. So what made them different?
It was the junior leadership, the junior NCOs, the junior officers whose coaching, whose
animating spirits brought out the best in their troops; who had admired leadership.
We all know that earning the trust and respect of your subordinates is critical. You -- You
simply have to earn that trust. You have to earn that respect. You have to earn that every
day, because when it's all over and done with you're not going to win any fights as a leader.
Your troops are going to win those fights.
But there was another word I learned to prioritize as I evaluated units, and that word was affection.
It's not popularity, with all the favoritism that comes with trying to be a popular person
as a leader. That's a -- a road to failure. But affection that you create in a unit, an
affection so strong that the troops will stick by one another; they'll carry out the mission
even in peril. And I bring this one up because I believe that that kind of affection brings
out self-discipline, where people don't want to let down the unit.
And I think that if there is one lesson I learned along the way -- that the more you
can build that kind of affection in a unit, when the going gets tough, when people are
getting shot down around you, it'll pull together; it'll pull through. And it'll be a lot smoother
organization: It'll move more rapidly against the enemy, more fluidly against the enemy;
and it will, generally speaking, have fewer disciplinary problems in garrison, whether
they be DUIs, sexual harassment, or all that -- that stuff that you see some jerks do.
And on the other hand, when you're in combat, you'll find that they really play hell with
the enemy because [of] what they sense about each other and the conviction they have to
supporting one another, their commitment to one another.
Philly Best 36 Where do you guys get these names? -- wants to know: What leadership books
do you recommend? General Mattis: It's a great, great question
because the Commandant's Reading List is designed specifically to identify the very best reading
there is on leadership. If you go to that -- that reading list you'll find Gates of
Fire. And when you read Gates of Fire, you find you, as a young leader, will never face
anything worse than what fighters have faced in the past. If you read Eugene Sledge's book
about -- With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa, you'll find the spirit of the Marine
Corps overcoming the most difficult combat conditions. And again, you'll find that you
will face nothing new under the sun. You will be able to overcome it if you keep your Marine
Corps training and your Marine Corps spirit foremost.
It requires you to do a lot of reading because there are many different styles of leadership.
You must stay authentic to who you are but at the same time we expect you to lead, in
no uncertain terms. In the Marine Corps you're not paid to have a mid-life crisis, or ask
people to help you through your mid-life crisis. You're there to give the enemy a mid-life
crisis. And that means you put your marines together into a good, tough team. And by reading
from the Commandant's Reading List you cannot go wrong in getting different leadership ideas
that will serve you very, very well.
SepiaAlltheThings wants to know: What did you look for in your NCOs and how should the
relationship between an NCO and an officer compliment one another?
You know, Sepia, for all NCOs and petty officers in a fleet marine force, I look for two qualities.
I knew I could trust marines. I made that assumption -- I can trust marines. So what
I was looking for was initiative and aggressiveness. I wanted them to have the initiative to take
charge, the aggressiveness to carry out whatever the order was. I wasn't interested in them
saying that something was "difficult." I wasn't interested in the difficulty. Difficulty is
-- is an excuse that the Marine Corps will never accept from its sailors and marines,
its petty officers and NCOs. So I looked for the initiative and aggressiveness and the
ability to bond with their troops, so that their troops looked at them as the admired
leader, the toughest leader, the most capable leader that they could hope for.
As far as the relationship between an NCO and an officer, there are some things that
rightly belong to NCO leaders. These are things that have to do with the daily functioning
of the unit; while the officer should be more concerned with being the sentinel, looking
further out, making certain that...the unit is ready for whatever is coming down the pike,
whatever missions are coming. So he's always on the lookout for an enemy, for an ambush,
this sort of thing, and creates that kind of combat-hunter mentality in -- in the Marines.
But the NCO has got to make certain, the petty officer's got to make certain that the sailors
and marines look and act like marines and are ready for whatever is coming; whatever
the officer brings down as the mission, they are ready to embrace it and carry it out.
Hey Del Bono wants to know -- again, where do you guys get these names? You know,
I'm going to come up with a few good ones for myself after this -- Hey Del Bono
asks: What in your opinion is the most important leadership trait and why?
There is no way to separate out the leadership traits because if you prioritize one over
the others then you actually become a weaker leader. You've got to look at all of them,
and how they come together, that make you into the kind of leader that your troops want
to follow, and are willing to follow, knowing you have the skill and the enthusiasm, you
have the passion, you have the compassion that makes you the full package. Remember,
what we want to do is make marines and win battles, and you do this by creating a Marine
Corps that has no better friend and no worse enemy. You can't be strong in one leadership
trait and lackluster in another and be a good leader. So the answer to the question about
which is the most important leadership trait, I think it's how you put it together in your
own authentic way so you stay yourself, but at the same time you recognize your responsibility
to put all the leadership traits together in one complete package.
Roy McVay asks: What is the kill-casualty radius of my knife hand.
Well, Roy, I would tell you that be -- once you get to be a high-ranking officer, the
kill-casualty radius is whatever your marines make it. And by the time I got up to the senior
ranks it was hundreds of miles. But I would just tell you that I -- I remain humbled that
I was able to stay in the Marine Corps so long when young marines like you would make
that kill-casualty radius very deep in enemy territory and carry out the marine's mission
in a way that, by the time you're a high-ranking officer, basically your -- your reputation
is carried, made, by you young marines who went into the fights with the enemy. So the
kill-casualty radius, as far as you can throw it there, young man.
Thank you.