Character is often revealed in seemingly small gestures. Amid all the speculation about how retired Marine general James Mattis will manage to lead the behemoth called the Department of Defense, one personal experience I had a decade ago as a young staffer in the office of the Secretary of Defense sticks in my mind as a demonstration of Mattis’s natural leadership ability. It was also an act of pure kindness I have never forgotten.
After the invasion of Iraq in 2003, as large numbers of wounded warriors started to come home to the United States to recuperate at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, my boss, Paul Wolfowitz, then deputy secretary of Defense, wanted the wounded service members and their families to know how much their sacrifices were appreciated. In addition to regular visits to Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval Hospital, he frequently attended “Friday night dinners” hosted by two Vietnam veterans at a local restaurant they owned. There, he met some of the wounded service members and their families, particularly to learn about the challenges they faced trying to deal with a “nineteenth century bureaucracy” so unlike the twenty-first century medical care they were getting from some gifted military doctors. Accompanied by his close friend and senior military assistant, Brigadier General Frank Helmick, the pair were often able to assist the wounded warriors in overcoming an obstinate bureaucracy.
The Friday night dinners inspired the idea of hosting a dinner at the Pentagon, a place where many of these wounded soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines had never been before. It would give them a chance to meet senior decision makers, both military and civilian, and share some of their intensely personal experiences of the war.
For this unusual dinner, elegant tables were set in the hallway of the Pentagon’s E Ring. As immediate office staff, we were expected to serve the wounded warriors their dinner, help them to their seats, and attend to whatever they needed. A small Army band played at the top of the stairs and my Army friend—who years later became my husband—helped his fellow officers bring service members no longer able to use their legs up the stairs.
It may sound like a surprisingly festive occasion for a group of people who had little to be thankful for—except that they were still alive. But it was indeed festive. Then-Lieutenant General Mattis—who, as a two-star, had commanded the First Marine Division during the invasion of Iraq— was there among the senior military leaders, incredibly gracious spending time with all the young men (there were no women yet among the wounded at that point) and kneeling down to hear their stories.
I wasn’t supposed to eat dinner there—just help serve it—but General Mattis insisted that I sit at his table, probably to break up the all-male atmosphere. A young soldier, probably no more than 18, was at our table. He was starving and devoured his beautiful dinner in just a few minutes. I will never forget the moment when General Mattis took his own untouched meal, cleared the young soldier’s plate himself, and gave him a fresh plate of his food. Mattis went without dinner that night, not making a big deal out of it, keeping the table laughing, and making sure all those young warriors were attended to.
I can’t write this story without tears coming to my eyes. It was a happy dinner but also touched by so much sadness. People’s lives had been profoundly changed by the war. But General Mattis was just doing what he saw as his job: taking care of those who had served him and their country so bravely, and not once looking for recognition. That small act gives me great faith in what he can do as Secretary of Defense.
It shows, I believe, that Mattis will look for leaders at the Pentagon who have the service of the nation in mind, not the kind of parochial posturing that was evident in the very public debate about the Navy’s budget priorities earlier this year. I read once in a Harvard Business Review article, urging the private sector to ape some of the leadership skills fostered in the military, that “The best leadership—whether in peacetime or war—is borne as a conscientious obligation to serve.” I am confident that Mattis indeed has this “conscientious obligation to serve,” which can only mean goodness for an organization as large as the Department of Defense, and those chosen to serve as senior staff.
Frances Tilney Burke was a special assistant to the deputy secretary of defense during the George W. Bush administration. She currently pursues graduate studies at The Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, focusing on international security studies and the history of U.S. foreign relations.
