I don't worry about stress. I create it.
— Jim Mattis
I have never been bewildered for long in any fight with our enemies - I was Armed with Insight.
I have never thought it necessary to patronize the American people.
Sometimes there are no good guys. There are no bad guys. It seems like everybody is in the middle.
The Marines have landed, and we now own a piece of Afghanistan.
I'm on record that it didn't really traumatize me to do away with some people.
Perhaps if you are in support functions waiting on the warfighters to spell out the specifics of what you are to do, you can avoid the consequences of not reading. Those who must adapt to overcoming an independent enemy's will are not allowed that luxury.
We know that in tough times, cynicism is just another way to give up, and in the military, we consider cynicism or giving up simply as forms of cowardice.
The U.S. military is not war weary. Our military draws strength from confronting our enemies when clear policy objectives are set and we are fully resourced for the fight.
There's no way that that our military power will not erode if a robust American economic revival is not part of the cards.
I can't tell you the number of times I looked down at what was going on 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'd done so much reading.
I don't have the best track record with quotes.
There is one way to have a short but exciting conversation with me, and that is to move too slow.
What is the one country in the Middle East that has not been attacked by ISIS? One. That is Iran. That is more than happenstance, I'm sure.
I like the enemy knowing there are a few guys like me around.
Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed... It doesn't give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead.
Engage your brain before you engage your weapon.
To Marines, love of liberty is not an empty phrase... Rather, it's displayed by blood, sweat, and tears for the fallen.
What we achieved was a nuclear pause, not a nuclear halt.
Wherever the enemy wants to fight, we will follow him to the ends of the Earth. We'll adapt, we'll train, we'll advise, we'll mentor, and we'll fight, and we'll fight well.
Don't create more enemies than you take out by some immoral act.
The Corps is in good hands, and it's been a privilege to serve with the Leathernecks. Now it's time to go.
While victimhood in America is exalted, I don't think our veterans should join those ranks.
As commanders and staff officers, we are coaches and sentries for our units: how can we coach anything if we don't know a hell of a lot more than just the TTPs?
For whatever trauma came with service in tough circumstances, we should take what we learned - take our post-traumatic growth - and, like past generations coming home, bring our sharpened strengths to bear, bring our attitude of gratitude to bear.
Basically, Islamic State is a combined al Qaeda and Lebanese Hezbollah on steroids, destabilizing the region, dissolving borders/changing the political geography in the Mid-east, and hardening political positions that make Mid-east peace-building more remote by the day.
The economy's always been the engine for our national security.
You stay teachable most by reading books. By reading what other people went through.
The most important 6 inches on the battlefield is between your ears.
I would storm the gates of Hell if Third Marine Air Wing was overhead.
Iran is not an enemy of ISIS; they have a lot to gain from the turmoil that ISIS creates.
I've lived a very colorful life, and I've said some things, But not once have I taken them back, and I've never apologized for them - and I won't.
It's very hard to live with yourself if you don't stick with your moral code.
Now from a distance, I look back on what the Corps taught me: to think like men of action, and to act like men of thought!
So long as our Corps fields such Marines, America has nothing to fear from tyrants, be they Fascists, Communists or Tyrants with Medieval Ideology. For we serve in a Corps with no institutional confusion about our purpose: To fight! To fight well!
Putin goes to bed at night knowing he can break all the rules, and the West will follow all the rules.
I've always found, give me a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers, and I do better with that than I do with torture.
Demonstrate to the world, there is 'No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy' than a U.S. Marine.
I've had some 'riotous excursions of the human spirit' alongside the young Sailors and Marines, and it's time to leave the stage to the young leaders who got their rank the old-fashioned way - they earned their stripes in combat.
I would just say there is one misperception of our veterans, and that is they are somehow damaged goods. I don't buy it.
No matter how bad any situation, cynicism has no positive impact. Watching the news, you might notice that cynicism and victimhood often seem to go hand-in-hand, but not for veterans.
We all recognize that the Mid-east is dissolving into crises, and we know terrorism did not start with 9-11.
Prime Minister Maliki, released from American restraint, acted on his worst instincts, creating enormous distrust in Iraq's Kurdish population and deeply embittering Sunnis in western Iraq's Al Anbar, who lost any confidence in a Baghdad government they saw as adversarial.
The example that America knows how to govern itself is one of the compelling aspects of our national security.
I believe that many of my young guys lived because I didn't waste their lives because I didn't have the vision in my mind of how to destroy the enemy at least cost to our guys and to the innocents on the battlefields.
There is nothing better than getting shot at and missed. It's really great.
If you can't eat it, shoot it, or wear it, don't bring it.
I consider ISIS nothing more than an excuse for Iran to continue its mischief.
No war is over until the enemy says it's over.
Be the hunter, not the hunted.
