General Jim “Mad Dog” Mattis is among the most revered top brass of the U.S. Marine Corps, and apparently he’s something of an expert orator too.
At a recent award dinner at the Marine Corps University Foundation he was awarded the Semper Fidelis Award, honoring a leader exemplifying high principles and dedicated service.
The 63-year-old subsequently addressed the crowd for what the Marine Times is saying might be the “most motivating speech of all time.”
Read some highlights below and judge for yourself.
“Entirely satisfied if we gave 100%, and entirely dissatisfied if we gave 99%. And those [noncommissioned officers] taught us the great pleasure of doing what others thought impossible.”
“I have never been bewildered for long in any fight with our enemies — I was armed with insight. In the worst of surprises we found our training and education had prepared us well.”
“Because every Marine, if he was in a tough spot — whether a bar fight, or tonight in Helmand River Valley, our fellow Marines would get to us, or die trying.”
“So long as our corps fields such marines, America has nothing to fear from tyrants, be they fascists, communists or tyrants with medieval ideology. For we serve in a corps with no institutional confusion about our purpose: To fight! To fight well!”
Oorah!
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