As Zinni predicted, military victory had been swift. By April 12, Saddam Hussein had been deposed, and US forces controlled most of Iraq.
Few Iraqi soldiers offered more than half-hearted resistance. Because of his lifelong devotion to the study of war and bachelorhood, he has been nicknamed “The Warrior Monk”.Mattis is known for his interest in the study of world history and military history, having a personal library that at one time had over seven thousand volumes. It wouldn’t be long before he led its men into a new battle.The summer officer training program in Quantico, Virginia, provided something that university hadn’t – a sense of purpose. War, after all, is full of random danger and demands that leaders get the simple things right.His reasoning? As a boy, he hunted rabbits in the surrounding hills with an old .22 rifle. That’s when radio stations started reporting that an airplane had hit the World Trade Center in New York.By 1990, Mattis had spent 18 years in the military. He even had a habit of publishing required reading lists for the all of the Marines that were under his command. Well, the Marines didn’t need literal beaches to land troops. Mattis’ dad moved to Richland, Washington to work at a plant that supplied fissile material for the Manhattan Project.
US troops were the glue holding Iraq together – remove them, and everything would fall apart.Mattis was at the sharp end of US foreign policy and responsible for implementing political leaders’ decisions on the ground. It is where complexity rules the day, and the consequence of imprudence will be severe, and even catastrophic.Mattis is a graduate of the US Marine Corps Command and Staff College, the National War College, and the US Marine Corps Amphibious Warfare School.Jim is Catholic, and has been described as being “committed” and “devout”. Now, their enemy was within striking distance of their makeshift capital, Kandahar. He watched as Marines test-fired their weapons into the water and loaded CH-53 helicopters. Well, its defeat had left thousands of well-trained and battle-hardened young men at loose ends, with neither jobs nor prospects. Jim Mattis is a native of the American Pacific Northwest. When he was offered an airline ticket home, an invitation to take the easy way out, he refused. Mattis’ unit hadn’t lost a single Marine in the fight.But President Obama was determined to end the war for good. It would be a decade before another chance presented itself.In 1968, Mattis enrolled at Central Washington State College.