#2: Kelly served three tours in Iraq, commanding as a two-star general from 2008 to 2009. He commanded a Marine task force as a one-star general during the initial assault into Iraq. Asked then by a Los Angeles Times reporter if he was concerned about Saddam Hussein’s forces, he reportedly said, “Hell these are Marines. Men like them held Guadalcanal and took Iwo Jima. Baghdad ain’t sh-t.”
.. #4: As a Marine general during the Obama administration, he opposed opening combat jobs to women in the Marine Corps, and closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. He rejected the argument that the prison served as terrorist recruitment propaganda as nonsense. He told Defense One: “Bombing the living sh-t out of ISIS in Iraq and Afghanistan, Syria, that would maybe irritate them more than the fact we have Guantanamo open.”
President Trump Names DHS Secretary John Kelly to White House Chief of Staff
Kelly earned the respect of the president as the head of his Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as the pair shared a deep respect for the rule of law and order.
.. The president has appeared several times with Kelly to recognize the importance of the armed forces.
After the president received a sword during the United States Coast Guard commencement ceremony this May, Kelly joked, “use that on the press, sir.”
.. Trump’s decision signals that he wants more gravitas and discipline in his chaotic White House, relying on a retired Marine General to take the place of Priebus — who sometimes struggled to earn the respect of the president’s staff.
.. When he asked his wife if he should do the job, she replied, “Well, you know, if we’re nothing the Kelly family is a family of service to the nation.”
The “70% Solution” : Making Major Decisions with 70% of the Information
“Most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70% of the information you wish you had. If you wait for 90%, in most cases, you’re probably being slow”
At what point is the information you have available for a key decision enough? You always want more.
This exactly mirrors a MAJOR decision-making framework taught in the Marine Corps–we actually call it the “70% solution.”
All of our warfighting doctrine is built around the principle of rapid and decisive action, but the problem is you’re in an uncertain, rapidly changing world where there are opposing actors operating around you and you never have all the answers. They emphasize in officer training that a key limiter is being paralyzed with uncertainty and wanting to wait until more information is available, and that you must actively counter this feeling. Indecision is a decision (and often the worst one).
President-elect Donald Trump Names Gen. James Mattis as Pick for Defense Secretary
Congress will need to pass special law to allow retired officer to take Pentagon’s top post
“We are going to appoint ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis as our secretary of defense,” Mr. Trump said
.. Gen. Mattis rose through the ranks of the Marine Corps over 43 years to become the U.S. military’s top commander in the Middle East.
.. Since retiring in 2013, Gen. Mattis has become a vocal critic of what he calls Washington’s “strategy-free” approach to warfare and threats. He has urged the U.S. to engage in the Middle East more directly and without preset limits on the use of force, echoing critics of President Barack Obama’s administration who say it has taken an overly incremental and fair-weather approach.
.. The selection of Gen. Mattis adds to Mr. Trump’s reliance on former military officers for his national-security team. The president-elect chose retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as his national security adviser and is considering Navy Adm. Michael Rogers to become director of national intelligence. He has also spoken to another retired Marine Corps general, John Kelly, about a top administration post... Gen. Mattis has also served as a director at the eblood-testing startup, Theranos Inc., for the last three years as it battled regulatory sanctions and federal criminal and civil probes... In 2012, Gen. Mattis, then leading the military’s Central Command, pressed for the U.S. Army to procure Theranos lab equipment and deploy it in the battlefield