Trump's Homeland Security Pick Gen. John Kelly is Mad Dog Mattis 2.0
#USMC General John Kelly reportedly picked as Homeland Security Secretary. 2nd Marine 4-Star picked for cabinet. https://t.co/J4z6gIjL9L
— Daniel Greenwood (@DQGreenwood) December 7, 2016
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CBS – Donald Trump is tapping Gen. John Kelly to run the Department of Homeland Security, CBS News confirms. …
Kelly is the third general tapped by the president-elect, joining Gen. James Mattis, Mr. Trump’s pick to become the next secretary of Defense, and Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Mr. Trump’s incoming national security advisor.
Like Mattis, Kelly is a Marine with a reputation for bluntness. …
He has also referred to domestic politics as a “cesspool” in an interview over the summer with Foreign Policy magazine.
Possibly the most gratifying thing about being a part of Barstool from the beginning has been the relationship we’ve had with the military. From our early days when we’d get pictures from overseas of deployed personnel reading the Stool newspaper to the time two active duty soldiers came to a party in Boston and wanted to thank us for entertaining them and I incredulously said “Wait. You just got back from fighting terrorists and YOU’RE thanking US?” to the work the Zero Blog Thirty guys are doing, it’s rewarding as hell to support the people brave enough to put themselves in harm’s way to any extent possible.
That said, in the two years I’ve been away, I’ve had a game-changer in the form of my own kid joining the Marines. He asked the Irish Rose and me to sign his early commitment papers so he could go right out of high school instead of being wait-listed. It was a tough call for us. But it’s all he ever wanted, so we did. How a U.S. Marine was born of a grown man who blogs about nonsense all day in a Batman sweatshirt is a discussion for another day. I say this just to make it clear I’ve got skin in the game I never had before. And to say that there are no people I would rather have my own son’s literal life in their figurative hands than men like Generals Mattis, Flynn and Kelly.
Thanks to Chaps and the ZBT guys, you already know about Mad Dog Mattis, who LCpl. Thornton calls a “God King.” So let me fill you in about Gen. John Kelly. I heard from a retired Marine when this pick was announced who served under him in Panama, and said he is as solid, bright and ballsy a commander as you could ever hope for. A few facts about him:
*He defended Los Angeles during the riots of 1994, where he learned about conducting urban warfare. He used those lessons in Panama City and later in Iraq.
*As a colonel, he was the assistant division commander in Iraq until he was made brigadier general, a promotion the Marine Corps hadn’t made in an active war zone since giving one to the legendary Chesty Puller, one of the all time baddest asses to ever walk the planet and the patron saint of the USMC.
*Before the assault on Baghdad, a reporter asked Kelly if he was worried about the size of Saddam’s forces and chemical weapons, He replied, “Hell these are Marines. Men like them held Guadalcanal and took Iwo Jima. Baghdad ain’t shit.”
*His older son is currently a major in the Marine Corps. His younger son Robert was an enlisted man for two tours of duty before being promoted to 1st Lieutenant. On his first tour as an officer in 2010, he was killed in action in Afghanistan and is buried in Arlington National. He’s the highest ranking officer to have lost a child in combat post-9/11.
This is the caliber of people Trump is putting in charge of keeping us all safe. People who hate political bullshit. Tough, brilliant, brave men who not only understand the very real threats from people who will stop at nothing to bring America to its knees, but know first hand the true cost of the sacrifices that are made to defend us. Call Trump a buffoon and a reality TV clown all you want and you won’t necessarily be wrong. But you can’t argue that he’s putting the best possible people in charge. I know I believe it. And it’s never been more important to me than it is right now.
P.S. If you really want to know what kind of leader will soon be in charge of running Homeland Security, this is a speech by General Kelly I’ve read before. He gave it days after his son gave his all for his country. About how 22-year-old Corporal Jonathan Yale and 20-year-old Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter sacrificed their lives stopping a suicide bomber and saving hundreds of their brothers-in-arms. It’s long, so I’ll just pull an excerpt. but I suggest you find time today to read the whole thing here. You’ll be glad you did.
The two Marines had about five seconds left to live. It took maybe another two seconds for them to present their weapons, take aim, and open up. By this time the truck was half-way through the barriers and gaining speed the whole time. Here, the recording shows a number of Iraqi police, some of whom had fired their AKs, now scattering like the normal and rational men they were—some running right past the Marines. They had three seconds left to live.
For about two seconds more, the recording shows the Marines’ weapons firing non-stop…the truck’s windshield exploding into shards of glass as their rounds take it apart and tore in to the body of the son-of-a-bitch who is trying to get past them to kill their brothers—American and Iraqi—bedded down in the barracks totally unaware of the fact that their lives at that moment depended entirely on two Marines standing their ground. If they had been aware, they would have know they were safe … because two Marines stood between them and a crazed suicide bomber.
The recording shows the truck careening to a stop immediately in front of the two Marines. In all of the instantaneous violence Yale and Haerter never hesitated. By all reports and by the recording, they never stepped back. They never even started to step aside. They never even shifted their weight. With their feet spread shoulder width apart, they leaned into the danger, firing as fast as they could work their weapons. They had only one second left to live.
The truck explodes. The camera goes blank. Two young men go to their God.
Six seconds.
Not enough time to think about their families, their country, their flag, or about their lives or their deaths, but more than enough time for two very brave young men to do their duty … into eternity. That is the kind of people who are on watch all over the world tonight—for you.
God bless. And Semper Fi.
