-
Having trouble using the site?
Contact support
Maggie’s Motivational Pic Thread v2.0 - - New Rules - See Post #1
- Thread starter Snake-Eyes
- Start date
-
- Tags
- motivational pictures
General Mattis on Christmas as Duty Officer:
A couple of months ago, when I told General Krulak, the former Commandant of the Marine Corps, now the chair of the Naval Academy Board of Visitors, that we were having General Mattis speak this evening, he said, “Let me tell you a Jim Mattis story.” General Krulak said, when he was Commandant of the Marine Corps, every year, starting about a week before Christmas, he and his wife would bake hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Christmas cookies. They would package them in small bundles.
Then on Christmas day, he would load his vehicle. At about 4 a.m., General Krulak would drive himself to every Marine guard post in the Washington-Annapolis-Baltimore area and deliver a small package of Christmas cookies to whatever Marines were pulling guard duty that day. He said that one year, he had gone down to Quantico as one of his stops to deliver Christmas cookies to the Marines on guard duty. He went to the command center and gave a package to the lance corporal who was on duty.
He asked, “Who’s the officer of the day?” The lance corporal said, “Sir, it’s Brigadier General Mattis.” And General Krulak said, “No, no, no. I know who General Mattis is. I mean, who’s the officer of the day today, Christmas day?” The lance corporal, feeling a little anxious, said, “Sir, it is Brigadier General Mattis.”
General Krulak said that, about that time, he spotted in the back room a cot, or a daybed. He said, “No, Lance Corporal. Who slept in that bed last night?” The lance corporal said, “Sir, it was Brigadier General Mattis.”
About that time, General Krulak said that General Mattis came in, in a duty uniform with a sword, and General Krulak said, “Jim, what are you doing here on Christmas day? Why do you have duty?” General Mattis told him that the young officer who was scheduled to have duty on Christmas day had a family, and General Mattis decided it was better for the young officer to spend Christmas Day with his family, and so he chose to have duty on Christmas Day.
General Krulak said, “That’s the kind of officer that Jim Mattis is.”
The story above was told by Dr. Albert C. Pierce, the Director of the Center for the Study of Professional Military Ethics at The United States Naval Academy. He was introducing General James Mattis who gave a lecture on Ethical Challenges in Contemporary Conflict in the spring of 2006.
Just in case anyone lives close enough to pay respects.
My folks are away on a mission trip away for 2 weeks starting today, otherwise I would tell them and they would go.
They live about an hour from Omaha.
They live about an hour from Omaha.
I pulled the Duty one year on Christmas Day. Damned if the Battalion 2 IC, a Major didn't show up just to shoot the shit. He brought along some goodies including the best fruit cake I've ever had. I don't like fruit cake much but this was outstanding.
<blockquote class="reddit-card" data-card-created="1543194832"><a href="">Gotta hand it to her...</a> from <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/Unexpected">r/Unexpected</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//embed.redditmedia.com/widgets/platform.js" charset="UTF-8"></script>
Long way from Texas.
Closer to the house, with off duty time. This dictates white sides, quarter inch top, shave, and class A. If no honor guard, I bet we could make one. Might be Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, Fire and Police. Any combination is an honor guard.
I was a Marine Security Guard stationed at 8th and I in the Yankee White program while General Krulak was Commandant. I remember the cookies his wife used to make for us. They are both very down to Earth and excellent humans. The timing was good for me to be around great Marines. Mike Barrett was my company Gunny at Camp David too, he went on to be the 17 Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps. I have never met a harder Marine. Damn I miss it... SEMPER FI - Jesse Bell
I have been in The Commandant's house and spoke with General Krulak and his wife before after I told a DC Metro officer to move his patrol car from in front of the Commandants house as it is restricted parking. The houses on Officers Row are pretty amazing historical sites, I could not imagine living in one.
It was a bad time for DC Metro in 1997, officers were being targeted when parked in their patrol cars and some were killed. They knew we had the area on surveillance with response times of just a minute or two. I hate DC, but what a special place 8th and I & the Washington Navy Yard is for the Marine Corps.
It was a bad time for DC Metro in 1997, officers were being targeted when parked in their patrol cars and some were killed. They knew we had the area on surveillance with response times of just a minute or two. I hate DC, but what a special place 8th and I & the Washington Navy Yard is for the Marine Corps.
I hope this story make the national news Great job Men !!
Hi,
Sadly that story did not even make "Texas" news...pretty much only Dallas area news and even then; most of the media put spotlight on the actual firefighters and not these Gentlemen.
Sincerely,
Theis
Sadly that story did not even make "Texas" news...pretty much only Dallas area news and even then; most of the media put spotlight on the actual firefighters and not these Gentlemen.
Sincerely,
Theis
I was thinking I saw it one the news, or perhaps it was a similar event locally.
I believe that it was included in our local affiliate news here in Central Florida.
Even made the news down here in Aus, did not show how high they stacked the mattresses for a three story fall....
I went to a course, Tactical Skills Advanced Course or TSAC, before deploying to Iraq in 2009. It was contracted by the AF for "Battlefield Airmen." I commanded an EOD flight as a AF Civil Engineer Sqdn Commander. We did a shit ton of shooting and moving around real people who were shooting and moving as well.
It scared the AF brass enough that the instructors were contracted Marine Reserve NCOs who had at least two tours to the sandbox, and the course was held off base, in a soy field converted to a range with 360 degree berms, just for this purpose.
I learned a lot about having my head on a swivel, communicating, moving, and reloading while doing all of those. No one got hurt, but a few of the rental cars, that were also used for props, had the antennas shot off, the windows shot through, or holes in the sides or the hood. Creases on the hood from people peeping and firing from behind cover but not accounting for mechanical offset in the M4 sights, were common.
I think the Russians (and Robert A. Heinlein in Starship Troopers) have embraced this concept for years.
Its only scary when the people shooting around you are not "gun people," or are gun people who think that makes them commandos. The people I went with did fine, because they had discipline.
It scared the AF brass enough that the instructors were contracted Marine Reserve NCOs who had at least two tours to the sandbox, and the course was held off base, in a soy field converted to a range with 360 degree berms, just for this purpose.
I learned a lot about having my head on a swivel, communicating, moving, and reloading while doing all of those. No one got hurt, but a few of the rental cars, that were also used for props, had the antennas shot off, the windows shot through, or holes in the sides or the hood. Creases on the hood from people peeping and firing from behind cover but not accounting for mechanical offset in the M4 sights, were common.
I think the Russians (and Robert A. Heinlein in Starship Troopers) have embraced this concept for years.
Its only scary when the people shooting around you are not "gun people," or are gun people who think that makes them commandos. The people I went with did fine, because they had discipline.
Doubt it. The Warrior Monk was never married.Wonder if a Mother in Law visit had anything to do with...
Not motivational, not the least bit motivational. ?No but this picture will make you sterile and unable to ever rise to the occasion:
eta: That’s the antidote to Viagra right there.
I didn’t know they had moose in Australia! Learn something new everyday. ?
I think this authoritarian dingbat missed the nature of constitutionally protected free speech.
We went through all of this in the 1970s when the item of concern was tee shirts with "bad" words or expressions, or haircuts, or whatever.
Nope, moose. There's an American flag on the house across the street.
