court. beyond that, what is most impressive to me is that he takes the time without any fanfare to visit the gold star families. that is something that is a heavy, heavy responsibility to go to the families of talk to the people who lost their sons and daughters, husbands, wives in battle under his command. that tells me a lot about who jim mattis is and why you should take that into account. finally, i feel a speech coming on. i ll try to just sum up right now. one of my other heroes in addition to senator mccain is a hero because he not only was a great supreme court justice, he was also a veteran of civil war. and can you not read any opinion of his without seeing how he reflects back upon his time in
there right now. but at that time i wanted to get out into the field. he is a warrior by nature. i want to say that he has the nickname of mad dog. it s a misnomer. it should be brave heart. because what really characterizes jim mattis is his courage. you have written about this in terms of why courage matters and you quoted from churchill and said that courage is the first of human resources. it guarantees all else, all the others. and so we have seen the history of jim mattis inwarrior, a brav battlefield. but that s not why we were here. if he were only a great warrior, you would say there are a lot of other warriors as well. he comes because he s a man of thought as well as action. and can you judge people by the friends he makes, the company he
of defense. so there s some history here. today i urge you to pass the same type of waiver for jim masmas mattis. i believe the raw requiring a secretary of defense to be out of active dutyeast seven years does rain relevant today. but there is also a good reason that there can be on occasion case by case common sense exceptions through congressional actions. the congressional research service has written an excellent paper on the legislative history of the separation from military service retirements. when the original statute was passed in 1947, the department of defense had just been created by merging the department of war and the department of navy. there were several very famous generals and admirals emerging from world war ii who are huely publicized heroes including a few five stars. and congress did not want one
the organization of the pentagon and he knows what the building had as to do to give the troops the tools they need to do their job and protect our nation s security. jim also knows powers and responsibilities of our military force and the challenges of our complex and very dangerous world. he understands that our military cannot be our primary tool to meet every challenge. he strongly supports the important role of diplomacy and has been outspoke innocent important need of giving the state department the resources they need to be fully effective. bottom line, mr. chairman and senator reid and members of the committee, i believe general mattis is exceptionally qualified to lead the department of defense. i urge this committee and the senate to pass a statutory waiver to allow him to serve our nation in this new role and to confirm him as secretary of defense. thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, senator nunn.
battle. and i think his grade is a 1994 memorial speech you should read. but in the conclusion of the speech, he said whether a man accepts from fortune they will look downward and dig, were from aspiration for acts and corps then will scale the ice, the one and only success that is his to command is to bring to his work a mighty heart. members of the committee, this man, jim mattis, brings to the job of the secretary of the defense a great and brave heart. i hope you will vote to confirm him quickly. thank you. i want to thank senator nunn and senator cohen i view as one of the great privileges of my time here in the united states senate was the honor of serving with both of you. and so i think it means a lot to me personally but also to