Here’s how rough this is.
If anyone has served or is friends with multiple people from different branches they know one thing the Air Force, army, and Navy is unified on....
They rip.... CONSTANTLY..... on Marines being degenerate dumbshits that eat crayons and take the ASVAB with a crayon set and use a sledgehammer to repair their M4s the same way Jeremy Clarkson uses one to “fix” electrical problems in his cars.
All that said, to know how those that were military almost UNANIMOUSLY don’t make those same jokes about Mattis. He’s basically worshipped as a God by Marines and the other branches all respect him and were excited he was picked to be SecDef.
My friends who served and I are all in a big facebook messenger stream.
As soon as the news came out the 10 responses from my buddy were all varying forms of:
“Fuck, this isn’t good”
And none of them served as a Marine
No shit there I was in a hanger in an austere location:
Sec Def Mattis briefing some people on something regarding the Middle East. Finally a quick Q & A comes up and there's a bunch of scripted strategic questions about this or that around the world from people picked to ask "the man" a question. Finally this gangly sergeant (national guard) fires off a true gem.
It went like this: "Uh sir, I have two questions first I don't do anything here, so I don't know why my state deployed me here. Uh second, I don't understand what we're doing here."
Mattis stared at him, like an uncomfortable you just wasted my time stare. The whole room was quiet, I could sense every senior NCO in the room wanted to hurt that guy immediately.
Mattis shakes his head, and calmly says, "You'd have to ask your NCO, I'm sure there's an answer."
It's dumb, it's small but it's a story that still makes me laugh and it sucks he's not at the helm anymore. I appreciate that we're leaving Syria - I just wish Trump wasn't so dense, I am completely guessing here but, there
had to be a compromise. Mattis wisdom, and knowledge, and level headedness leaving the WH is irreplaceable. You know you've bridged a gap when as a military leader, Micheal Moore gives you praise which he did to Mattis.