James Mattis: “You cannot allow any of your people to avoid the brutal facts. If they start living in a dream world, it’s going to be bad.”

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Retired four-star general James Mattis resigned from the government on Thursday with a letter that, some say, implies the president is treasonous.  He has been in the Marines for forty-four years, since he was eighteen (counting the two years, from 1969-71, that it took him to get an undergraduate degree in history) but did not see action until Kuwait.  He advanced rapidly through command and was in every important battle in the Middle East, including the pacification of Iraq and both battles over Fallujah.  He was famously said to have told the Iraqis he was meeting for the first time (after sending his tanks and artillery back to the US) in a peace conference: “I come in peace.  I didn’t bring any artillery.  But I’m begging you: don’t fuck with me– or I’ll kill you all.”  He was known as “the Warrior Monk” or “Mad Dog Mattis.”

This is a guy that would never quit, never give up, and he couldn’t handle being that man’s defense secretary.  Calling combat troops to the border with Mexico wasn’t enough to make him throw up his hands.  Trying to end the military’s acceptance of gays and transgender people wasn’t enough to stop him.  But he who must not be named was too much.