There is only one 'retirement plan' for terrorists.
Jim MattisRead
Policy makers who have never served in the military continue to use the military to lead social change in this country.
Interpretation
The quote critiques policy makers who lack military experience yet advocate for military involvement in societal issues.
Jim Mattis points out the irony of policy makers who, without personal military experience, are quick to employ the military to implement social change. This raises questions about their understanding and respect for the military's role and the complex nature of social issues that require thoughtful, informed approaches rather than simple reliance on military solutions.
In practice
During a speech on defense policy at a university conference.
There is only one 'retirement plan' for terrorists.
There are hunters, and there are victims. By your discipline, cunning, obedience, and alertness, you will decide if you are a hunter or a victim.
Now from a distance, I look back on what the Corps taught me: to think like men of action, and to act like men of thought!
I believe that many of my young guys lived because I didn't waste their lives because I didn't have the vision in my mind of how to destroy the enemy at least cost to our guys and to the innocents on the battlefields.
For whatever trauma came with service in tough circumstances, we should take what we learned - take our post-traumatic growth - and, like past generations coming home, bring our sharpened strengths to bear, bring our attitude of gratitude to bear.
It's very hard to live with yourself if you don't stick with your moral code.
The 1928 Republican Convention opened with a prayer. If the Lord can see His way clear to bless the Republican Party the way it's been carrying on, then the rest of us ought to get it without even asking.
These two great organisations of the English-speaking democracies, the British Empire and the United States, will have to be somewhat mixed up together in some affairs for mutual and general advantage. I do not view the process with any misgivings. I could not stop it if I wished. Let it roll on full flood, inexorable, irresistible, benignant, to broader lands, and better days.
A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues.
The tank, the B-52, the fighter-bomber, the state-controlled police and military are the weapons of dictatorship. The rifle is the weapon of democracy. Not for nothing was the revolver called an "equalizer."
Government is like an onion. To understand it, you have to peel through many different layers. Most outsiders never get beyond the first or second layer.
For Conservatives, all disputes over law, liberty and justice are addressed to a historic and existing community. The root of politics, they believe, is attachment - the motive in human beings that binds them to the place, the customs, the history and the people who are theirs.
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