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Gen. Mattis is a warrior. What I appreciate about Gen. Mattis is he understands the principle that if you go to war, you go to war to win.

Nicknamed 'Mad-Dog Mattis' by his men, he was a command warrior in the old George Patton mode. He wasn't an armchair general by any definition of that much-maligned term. If a Marine re-upped at a location where he was present, he would personally go to that Marine and thank him or her for rejoining.

There are biographies, I looked at a lot of photographs of him, I heard his voice over and over and over again. You get in there and get to know the man by all of those pieces of information.

Mattis has been sharply critical of President Barack Obama's policies on Iran and Obama's capping of troop numbers and campaign end-dates in theaters of war such as Afghanistan and Iraq. Mattis also appears to be a skeptic of the Obama-era policy of putting women into combat roles.

There's a wealth of information on James Dean, and everybody has an opinion on him. James Dean made some kind of impression on everybody.

I was much influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre.

Chopper Read attended a writing school I gave for inmates at Risdon Prison in Hobart many years ago. Even if I hadn't known about his hacked-off ears and his criminal history, I'd have found him powerful and compelling.

I follow the teachings of Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, United States Marine Corps. He won two Congressional Medals of Honor, and he wrote the highly controversial antiwar book 'War is a Racket.'

In picking Gen. Jim Mattis for Defense secretary, President-elect Donald Trump has said that he found his 'Gen. George Patton.' Yet that label may not really capture what makes Mattis a distinctive choice.