” The Viral Email Sent by a Marine General in 2003 on the Importance of Reading”
“In the fall of 2003, Marine Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis was preparing to deploy to Iraq. He received an email from someone asking about the importance of reading, or rather the argument that one might be “too busy” to read. He penned thoughtful response, and while the email made the rounds back then, it’s now doing so again in this age of viral media.
In short, if you don’t know history you’re doomed to repeat it. And that puts your men at risk.
Below are Mattis’s words excerpted by the blog STRIFE:
Message 1: from General James Mattis, on the matter of professional reading, 20 November
2003
….The problem with being too busy to read is that you learn by experience (or by your men’s
experience), i.e. the hard way. By reading, you learn through others’ experiences, generally a
better way to do business, especially in our line of work where the consequences of
incompetence are so final for young men.
Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for
how any problem has been addressed (successfully or unsuccessfully) before. It doesn’t give
me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead.”
Wake Up and Reclaim America 