23 Years Later, General Jim Mattis’s Advice to His Marines in Iraq Is Still the Most Quoted Line in the Modern Military

One rule on a list handed to Marines in Iraq became the most quoted sentence in the modern military. The full Mattis biography behind it: the 7,000-book library, the first Marine to command a naval task force, CENTCOM, the 98-to-1 confirmation, and the letter that ended it on principle.