Fight with a happy heart.
— Jim Mattis
I don't write policy for my government.
For a sitting U.S. president to see our allies as freeloaders is nuts.
Ultimately, a real understanding of history means that we face nothing new under the sun.
The Army was always big on Clausewitz, the Prussian; the Navy on Alfred Thayer Mahan, the American; and the Air Force on Giulio Douhet, the Italian. But the Marine Corps has always been more Eastern-oriented. I am much more comfortable with Sun-tzu and his approach to warfare.
Gains achieved at great cost against our enemy in Afghanistan are reversible.
There is only one 'retirement plan' for terrorists.
Some people feel affronted when something they thought to be true doesn't happen. If that's the case, then your sense of risk is much higher, and that leads to risk aversion. You need to be able to be comfortable in uncertainty.
Notifying the enemy in advance of our withdrawal dates or reassuring the enemy that we will not use certain capabilities like our ground forces should be avoided.
The Iranian regime, in my mind, is the single most enduring threat to stability and peace in the Middle East.
Marines don't know how to spell the word 'defeat'.
It's not an easy course. It's not designed to be. We're not here to get you in touch with your inner child.
No one gives a damn what Iran thinks on any significant issue. The only reason Iran is at the big boys' table is because of their nuclear weapons program.
There is no God-given right to victory on the battlefield. You win that through the skill and the devotion, the valor and the ferocity of your troops.
There are many people who do not know if the U.S. Army has 60,000 men or 6 million. They do not have a clue about that.
Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.
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across coalition and national lines, and across civilian/military lines, you need to go home, because your leadership is obsolete.
The military can buy our diplomats some time.
Since coming back from overseas, this is more of a foreign country than the places overseas. I don't understand it. It's like America has lost faith in rational thought.
Read about history, and you become aware that nothing starts with us.
Iran is not a nation-state; it's a revolutionary cause devoted to mayhem.
There is no room for military people, including our veterans, to see themselves as victims, even if so many of our countrymen are prone to relish that role.
In a country with millions of people and cars going everywhere, the enemy is going to get a car bomb out there once in awhile.
It is not scientifically possible to accurately predict the outcome of an action. To suggest otherwise runs contrary to historical experience and the nature of war.
The fundamental question I believe is, 'Is political Islam in our best interest?' If not, what is our policy to authoritatively support the countervailing forces?
It's a lot of fun to fight.
For the mission's sake, for our country's sake, and the sake of the men who carried the Division's colors in past battles - carry out your mission and keep your honor clean.
You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway.
I don't think the U.S. military is conservative. It's pragmatic.
Policy makers who have never served in the military continue to use the military to lead social change in this country.
There are hunters, and there are victims. By your discipline, cunning, obedience, and alertness, you will decide if you are a hunter or a victim.
I was a Marine for 41 years, and it wasn't long enough. We enjoy putting on that uniform.
We should not fight wars without a clearly defined end state... when you go to war, it can't be a half-step.
By reading, you learn through others' experiences, generally, a better way to do business, especially in our line of work where the consequences of incompetence are so final for young men.
If you read enough biography and history, you learn how people have dealt successfully or unsuccessfully with similar situations or patterns in the past. It doesn't give you a template of answers, but it does help you refine the questions you have to ask yourself.
In my line of work, the enemy gets a vote.
There are going to be good days and bad days. Bottom line.
You must reward the kind of behavior that you want.
In an interconnected age when opportunistic adversaries can work in tandem to destroy stability and prosperity, our country needs to regain its strategic footing. We need to bring the clarity to our efforts before we lose the confidence of the American people and the support of potential allies.
There's an urgent need to stop reacting to each immediate vexing issue in isolation. Such response often creates unanticipated second-order effects and even more problems for us.
I don't lose any sleep at night over the potential for failure. I cannot even spell the word.
PowerPoint makes us stupid.
There are a lot of self-imposed restrictions by people who somehow believe they have to fall in with a certain military cant. There was always a sense that we had to put things into words that would touch our troops' hearts, not just their heads.
It's a lot easier to stay idealistic if you don't sign two to five next-of-kin letters every day.
Most people know nobody in the military.
Treachery has existed as long as there's been warfare, and there's always been a few people that you couldn't trust.
