James Mattis: on Reading

James Mattis:

"If you haven’t read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent, because your personal experiences alone aren’t broad enough to sustain you.”





KEY POINTS

Defense Secretary James Mattis, hailed for his battlefield prowess and kinship with rank-and-file soldiers, has said that the best way to hone war-fighting skills is to leverage lessons learned from history.

Mattis boasts a personal library of 7,000 books and despite increased responsibilities and a demanding schedule, his reading habits haven’t slowed.

“You stay teachable most by reading books, by reading what other people went through,” Mattis has said.