(UPDATE - Welcome, visitors from basil's blog! Please feel free to look around and make yourself comfortable. Thank you, basil, for linking to me, and you might want also to see this post, even if I'm not nearly as funny as basil! ;) )
(Update 2.0 - go read the Adventures of Chester for even more about this awesome man!)
Everybody's talking about this guy (a small sample).
Good! I like his candor and his attitude:
Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. . . . It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right upfront with you, I like brawling," he said at the forum in San Diego.
"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil," he added. "You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."
We train our armed forces to blow things up and kill the bad guys, why should we ping on them when they take satisfaction in their job?
My salute to a great Marine, Lt. General James Mattis!
One commenter at the Q and O blog, Cassandra, states it beautifully:
Did you hear the actual speech?
I'd be extremely surprised if he didn't also talk about the need to "balance ferocity and chivalry".
I've heard him talk several times (once last week, by the way), and he stresses this each and every time -- how important it is not to wound innocents, not to become that which you're fighting. [underlined emphasis mine]
If you watch the guy talking, you cannot walk away with the kind of impression you would get, say, from reading this post. I've also met him several times.
Our Marines take heavy casualties precisely because of his insistence on not targeting innocents. It's a price we gladly pay.
Just something to keep in mind.
Absolutely. Our military personnel are warriors, not thugs. They are men and women who stand at the gate, guarding us from harm. I'm sure they would prefer not to fight, but when the bullies and bad guys make a racket, our forces are ready willing and able to shut them up. Permanantly.
Hoo-ah!
