In this age, I don't care how tactically or operationally brilliant you are, if you cannot create harmony - even vicious harmony - on the battlefield based on trust across service lines, across coalition and national lines, and across civilian/military lines, you need to go home, because your leadership is obsolete. We have got to have officers who can create harmony across all those lines.
James MattisIt is mostly a matter of wills. Whose will is going to break first? Ours or the enemy's?
James MattisGeneral [James] Mattis's primary experience - indeed, his only experience - is as a member of the United States Marine Corps, where he served for 41 years. That's his experience.
James MattisOur strategy right now is to accelerate the campaign against ISIS. It is a threat to all civilized nations.
James MattisIf in order to kill the enemy you have to kill an innocent, don't take the shot. Don't create more enemies than you take out by some immoral act.
James MattisSince 9/11 we've been engaged in wars around the world, and General [James] Mattis has been a leading battlefield commander in many of those theaters, including in the April 2004 siege of Fallujah, where the US Marines killed so many people that the municipal soccer stadium in the city had to be turned into a graveyard for the dead.
James MattisI can't imagine that I would be asked that by the president-elect [Donald Trump], or then-president [Barack Obama]. But it's - I'm very clear. I voted for the change that put the Army Field Manual in place as a member of Congress. I understand that law very, very quickly and am also deeply aware that any changes to that will come through Congress and the president.
James Mattis