Something kinda cool about command level Teufel Hunden nom d'guerr'd "Mad Dog."As in General Mad Dog Mattis who just got the gig as the COM in CENTCOM
Great Satan's Cent Com (Central Command for the unabbreviated) stretches from East Africa to China. It's one big mess of dysfunctional states, semi states, kingdoms fully stocked on failure, violence, young people and oil. Iraq on one edge and Afghanistan on the other and tens of thousands of American boots already on the ground in both.
The Land of the Pure is there in one corner, threatening to act up and out with nuke powered jihadis'. The catty cornered Strip is burning like an Ipod about to catch fire.
On the north 40 the last millenium's Collectivist Union time republics of the Central Asia 'Stans, skip along under despotries ranging from the merely authoritarian to the genuinely insane.
And right in the middle lies Iran.
In Great Satan's military heirarchy of assignments and commands, Central Command is at the top.
Large, in charge, CENTCOM features all the killing machines, regime changers and truckloads of hurt and destruction that can sweetly be precisely delivered on the heads of Great Satan's enemies at anytime.
Danger Room gives up the sweet hot! deets n gossip
"...Meet the new prospective leader of all American forces in the Middle East and South Asia: Marine General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, whom Defense Secretary Robert Gates tapped this afternoon to take charge of U.S. Central Command. Not many intellectuals have such mean-muchacho nicknames. But Mattis is the kind of guy who rabidly gnarls through the gristle of pretty much every military shibboleth.
"...He was into counterinsurgency before it was dogma. At a time of tech-driven constant communication, he thinks the military should be switching its radios off. Want to ensure that all levels of the force are networked together? Mattis wants a hierarchical organization like the military to embrace decentralization. And now, pending Senate confirmation, this guy is going to be running the most important command the military has.
"...Don’t get it twisted: Mattis will mess you up. He has commanded Marines in both Iraq and Afghanistan and a coined a favorite Marine motto in the process: “No better friend, no worse enemy.”
"...Nathaniel Fick, who served under Mattis as a young officer in both Iraq and Afghanistan, calls him “a Marine’s Marine. He’s a warfighter.” When he got tapped for his current position in charge of the military’s Joint Forces Command, a Marine Corps Times profile put him in the Corps’ pantheon, calling him “a leader with almost mythical, rock-star status like Chesty Puller and Al Gray.” Check the #Mattisisms hashtag on twitter.
Congrats General Mattis!
Pic - Mad Dog says "Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet."
Mattis is a f'n stud. He'll fix everything!!!
ReplyDeleteThank God for the United States Marines. Given the political will, they will never come out second, no matter where the fight.
ReplyDeleteI like Mattis, too. He's the perfect warrior-scholar of the current day. Did a lot of good things at JFCOM, have no doubt he will manage CENTCOM as well.
ReplyDeleteA fringe benefit for those who were upset that he didn't get appointed as Commandant of the Marine Corps.had a sneak feeling that he would of ended as Commander of CentCom, although not after a debacle.
ReplyDeleteMattis reminds me of Silent Lew Walt, another brawler who thought. Funny, when my Dad was a kid he was one of then-Major Walt's Corporals. Then, in 1966 Silent Lew pinned on my Corporal chevrons.
ReplyDeleteWe probably would have won that old war by 1968 if Walt had been in charge instead to that pompous idiot Westmorland.
Anyhow, if I still drank I'd get a bottle of Mad Dog to toast his success. And, is this the first time a Marine has been in command of Army troops since Howlin' Mad Smith canned that Army General in WW2?