WASHINGTON \u2014 On a summer morning in a desolate corner of Iraq\u2019s western desert, Jim Mattis learned he\u2019d narrowly evaded an assassination attempt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Sunni Arab man had been caught planting a bomb on a road shortly before Mattis and his small team of Marines passed by. Told the captured insurgent spoke English, Mattis decided to talk to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After Mattis offered a cigarette and coffee, the man said he tried to kill the general and his fellow Marines because he resented the foreigner soldiers in his land. Mattis said he understood the sentiment but assured the insurgent he was headed for Abu Ghraib, the infamous U.S.-run prison. What happened next explains the point of the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cGeneral,\u201d the man asked Mattis, \u201cif I am a model prisoner do you think someday I could emigrate to America?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Mattis\u2019 telling, this insurgent\u2019s question showed he felt \u201cthe power of America\u2019s inspiration.\u201d It was a reminder of the value of national unity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mattis, now the Pentagon boss and perhaps the most admired member of President Donald Trump\u2019s Cabinet, is a storyteller. And at no time do the tales flow more easily than when he\u2019s among the breed he identifies with most closely \u2014 the men and women of the military.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The anecdote about the Iraqi insurgent, and other stories he recounted during a series of troop visits shortly before Christmas, are told with purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI bring this up to you, my fine young sailors, because I want you to remember that on our worst day we\u2019re still the best going, and we\u2019re counting on you to take us to the next level,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve never been satisfied with where America\u2019s at. We\u2019re always prone to looking at the bad things, the things that aren\u2019t working right. That\u2019s good. It\u2019s healthy, so long as we then roll up our sleeves and work together, together, together, to make it better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The stories tend to be snippets of Mattis\u2019 personal history, including moments he believes illustrate the deeper meaning of military service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On a trip last month to the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and three domestic military installations, Mattis revealed himself in ways rarely seen in Washington, where he has studiously maintained a low public profile. With no news media in attendance except one Associated Press reporter, Mattis made clear during his troop visits that he had not come to lecture or to trade on his status as a retired four-star general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLet\u2019s just shoot the breeze for a few minutes,\u201d he said at one point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another time he opened with: \u201cMy name is Mattis, and I work at the Department of Defense.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mattis used stories to emphasize that today\u2019s uncertain world means every military member needs to be ready to fight at a moment\u2019s notice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He recalled the words of a Marine sergeant major when Mattis was just two years into his career:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEvery week in the fleet Marine force is your last week of peace,\u201d the sergeant major said. \u201cIf you don\u2019t go into every week thinking like this, you\u2019re going to have a sick feeling in the bottom of your stomach when your NCOs (non-commissioned officers) knock on your door and say, \u2018Get up. Get your gear on. We\u2019re leaving.\u2018\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By leaving, Mattis meant departing for war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A recurring Mattis theme is that the military operates in a fundamentally unpredictable world. He recalled how he was hiking with his Marines in the Sierra Nevadas in August 1990 when he got word to report with his men to the nearest civilian airport. Iraq\u2019s Saddam Hussein had just invaded Kuwait, and the Marines were needed to hold the line in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In an exchange with Marines at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, Mattis recalled sitting in the back of a room at the Pentagon in June 2001 while senior political appointees of the new George W. Bush administration fired questions at a military briefer about where they should expect to see the most worrisome security threats. At one point, Mattis said, the briefer said confidently that amid all the uncertainty, the one place the U.S. definitely would not be fighting was Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFive and a half months later, I was shivering in Afghanistan,\u201d Mattis said, referring to his role as commander of Task Force 58, a special group that landed in southern Afghanistan aboard helicopters flown from Navy ships in the Arabian Sea to attack the Taliban in and around Kandahar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Regardless how much they resonate with his young audience, Mattis\u2019 stories illustrate how he sees his military experience as a way to connect with troops who often feel distant from their political leaders. They also are a reminder Mattis\u2019 boss is one of the most politically divisive figures in recent history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking to troops and family members at an outdoor movie theater at Guantanamo, Mattis pointed directly to the political battles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m so happy to be in Guantanamo that I could cry right now, to be out of Washington,\u201d he said, adding jokingly that he wouldn\u2019t mind spending the rest of his tenure away from the capital. He said as soon as he gets back in the company of uniformed troops, he is reminded of why the military can set a standard for civility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur country needs you,\u201d he said, and not just because of the military\u2019s firepower. \u201cIt\u2019s also the example you set for the country at a time it needs good role models; it needs to look at an organization that doesn\u2019t care what gender you are, it doesn\u2019t care what religion you are, it doesn\u2019t care what ethnic group you are. It\u2019s an organization that can work together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The stories tend to be snippets of Mattis\u2019 personal history, including moments he believes illustrate the deeper meaning of military service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":44728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":86,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[15,86],"tags":[],"coauthors":[2496],"class_list":["post-39849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-pentagon-congress"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"PC4OGJKYPZGWHHUW6L5FYPJDZY","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/pentagon-congress\/2018\/01\/09\/mattis-reveals-himself-in-storytelling-moments-with-troops\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n