A Conservative View

A CHRISTMAS STORY

I am trying to share a change of pace this Christmas season after a year of politics, biased new’s, lies, backstabbing, distortions, a Republican party in disarray and a Demoncratic party so far left they make CUBA look conservative. I turned to Dr. Peter Forrest for providing another heartwarming story about a man’s-man who is destined to help drain the Washington Swamp.  

This is how leaders lead from the “front,” putting their men first. A General Mattis Christmas Story.

A couple of months ago, when I told General Krulak, the former Commandant of the Marine Corps, now the chair of the Naval Academy Board of Visitors, that we were having General Mattis speak this evening, he said, “Let me tell you a Jim Mattis story.”

General Krulak said, “when he was Commandant of the Marine Corps, every year, starting about a week before Christmas, he and his wife would bake hundreds of Christmas cookies and package them in small bundles.

Then, on Christmas day, he would load his vehicle. At about 4 a.m., General Krulak would drive himself to every Marine guard post in the Washington-Annapolis-Baltimore area and deliver a small package of Christmas cookies to whatever Marines were pulling guard duty that day.

He said that one year he had gone down to Quantico as it was one of his stops to deliver Christmas cookies to the Marines on guard duty. He went to the command center and gave a package to the corporal who was on duty.

He asked, “Who’s the Officer of the Day?” The corporal said, “Sir, it’s Brigadier General Mattis.”

And General Krulak said, “No, no, no. I know who General Mattis is. I mean, who’s the Officer of the Day today, Christmas day?

The corporal, feeling a little anxious, said, “Sir, it is Brigadier General Mattis.”

General Krulak said that, about that time, he spotted in the back room a cot, or a daybed. He said, “No, corporal. Who slept in that bed last night?”

The corporal replied, “Sir, it was Brigadier General Mattis.”

About that time, General Krulak said that General Mattis came in, in a duty uniform with a sword, and General Krulak said, “Jim, what are you doing here on Christmas day? Why do you have duty?” General Mattis told him that the young officer who was scheduled to have duty on Christmas day had a family, and General Mattis decided it was better for the young officer to spend Christmas Day with his family, and so he chose to have duty on Christmas Day.

General Krulak said, “That’s the kind of officer that Jim Mattis is.”

The story above was told by Dr. Albert C. Pierce, the Director of the Center for the Study of Professional Military Ethics at The United States Naval Academy. He was introducing General James Mattis who gave a lecture on Ethical Challenges in Contemporary Conflict i  the Spring of 2006. This was taken from the transcript and if you were in the military this message will shed a lot of light on the character of General Mattis. If you were not in the military, ask one of your neighbors to explain this to you.

Donald Trump has asked Congress to approve General Mattis as the new Secretary of Defense that will take a rule change to take effect. I hope every American alive will support this outstanding General in being nominated for this position. Any American who can achieve the rank of a Four-Star General is extremely more qualified to serve in any appointed or elected position than any bureaucrat in Washington DC, including every member of Congress. 

C Brewer, I am a veteran who joined the US Navy at 17 and was Honorably discharged over 64 years ago.