June 2017 and the newly installed Cabinet circled Donald Trump for an obsequious public display that sent shivers down backs and upset the stomachs of many.
That original table of sycophants has transformed. Gone are Rex Tillerson, Ryan Zinke, Tom Price, David Shulkin, Scott Pruitt and Dan Coats. Gone are Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon, Tom Bossert, Carl Icahn, Sean Spicer, H.R. McMaster and Omarose Manigault-Newman. Kelly and Pompeo switched positions. Now rumor is Kelly is walking. Kushner is even more silent than before. Sessions got fired.
One man remains standing, a quiet and unwavering force. “Mad Dog” Jim Mattis, Secretary of Defense, a Marine for over forty years, former commander, U.S. Joint Forces Command, NATO’s Supreme Allied Command for Transformation and U.S. Central Command. He stands apart from the grifters and frauds and suckups that compose the Trump Cabinet. When it was his time to speak at that Cabinet round table, Mattis looked Trump in the eye and reminded him of the men and women who serve the United States. He did not praise the robber baron with the title of Commander-in-Chief.
We better be thankful for Jim Mattis.
Likewise, another Marine, still in uniform, earns our gratitude. Gen. Joseph F. Dunford, Jr. is the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Fighting Joe” reports to Mattis, the National Security Council and Trump. Dunford is the highest ranking military officer in the republic. Previously the 36th Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Dunford is also an erudite scholar with master’s degrees in Government from Georgetown University and in International Relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
Not everyone agreed with Dunford’s strategy when he oversaw NATO forces in Afghanistan. And General Mattis got plenty of flak for deploying troops to the U.S.-Mexico border in defense of the fake “invasion” of refugees and asylum-seekers. Yet, as long as these two guys are present to keep Trump’s tiny fingers off the nuclear football and waylay his juvenile urge to kill and destroy, then I’ll say “Thank You” to the generals. They are all we and the world have until Mueller completes his mission.
