The Pentagon's Wars by Mark Perry

Author:Mark Perry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2017-10-24T04:00:00+00:00

THIS WAS A tough fight. As the 3rd ID moved north, it left Iraq’s urban areas to the IMEF. Its commander was Lieutenant General James Conway, a career Marine and looming hulk of a man admired by his peers, the most important of whom was Major General James Mattis. A legend inside the Marine Corps, Mattis was commander of Conway’s 1st Marine Division and Task Force Tarawa—a powerful air-ground component matching speed with power. Called “Mad Dog” by his troopers, the Marine was a fearless fighter and plain talker. His personality was shown during morning combat conferences. He’d stride to the head of the room, pointer in hand, and pivot to face his audience: “The reason we’re fighting today,” he once said, “is that so those fucking Army colonels down in Kuwait can have cream for their morning coffee.” It was just the right touch, easing the tension in the room and bringing laughs from his Marines. Mattis barely cracked a smile, leaving his listeners wondering if he thought it was true. In Iraq, Mattis proved he was arguably the best combat commander in an American uniform since George Patton. “Tempo,” he would yell. “This is about tempo.” If his Marines weren’t moving he wanted to know why. Once, striding through a forward Marine position, he noticed his men were hugging the ground as Iraqi mortars landed nearby. He went to the unit’s commander. “What the hell?” he said. “This is indirect fire. They’re not actually aiming for you. Don’t take it personally.” The commander stared at him. “Yeah, right,” he said, “but indirect fire can still kill you.” Indirect fire? “We took indirect fire all the time and Mattis would just pass it off, talking about ‘tempo,’ ‘tempo,’ ‘tempo.’ And we’d think: ‘Yeah, tempo, but if you could just call in the Air Force to bomb those fuckers that would be great.’” One of Mattis’s Marines had a different take: “I was always under the impression when I talked with Mattis that he was about to leap on me and beat my brains out.”5

Years later, Mattis’s reputation for bluntness would get him mentioned as a potential presidential candidate. But Mattis also had his detractors, including members of the press who thought he was more pose than substance. Some of his subordinates agreed. Mattis had once come into a bar near Quantico (the Virginia Marine base), one of them remembers, and traded stories with them about women they knew, “laughed heartily, slapped us on the back and then breezed on out.” Mattis was just trying to be “one of the boys,” this officer says, but it seemed a bit odd that he felt he needed to parade his masculinity. One reporter came across Mattis in Kuwait, on the eve of the war, and told him that he’d just visited Marines sheltered in a nearby warehouse, sleeping on the cold concrete. Perhaps Mattis might arrange to get them some cots. “Good Christ,” Mattis grumbled, “they’re Marines. They don’t need soft beds.”

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