Anyone not really trust Mattis either?
I know he's on the record as not supporting torture but this is also the guy who once claimed killing people at war was "fun."
I just have the feeling that people expecting him to be the voice of reason for the administration are going to be sorely disappointed.
And even if he does try to fill that role, do you think Trump and Bannon would even care that listen?
= new reply since forum marked as read
Maybe that is what got him the job. 
I'm a naval officer's kid and that was one of the last events before my father retired. I was a teenager and there as my father's official escort. (I'm trying to be vague enough that I don't out myself.)
I am not exaggerating when I say he's one of the most thoughtful and intelligent men I have ever met. And the upper ranks of the officer corps are extremely thoughtful, well-educated and intelligent; by O-4, they've got the equivalent of multiple masters; by O-6, we're starting to talk multiple doctorates. At the time, Mattis was (I think) a new Lt Col.
The event was formal -- 6 forks, 5 glasses, assigned seating formal, and duty dances with dance cards. I was not at all important in that setting -- teenager, child/escort of a retiring officer whose duty was not chain of command, from a different service. I was there expecting to be ignored. But formal service means one converses with one's neighbors, and I got assigned to sit by Mattis, who had the grace and good manners to behave properly. That's a bare minimum at that level. Weather, studies, the food -- that's normal. But he went beyond that basic courtesy and we talked about books for the half of the evening (on that, he was better mannered than the one on my other side). My mother is from a peace church, and I was raised in two faiths -- her peace church and my father's Jesuit Catholicism. (Let's not get into the disaster that was their marriage, okay? Yeah, that was a massive mistake on all sides.) At the time, I was starting to explore those philosophical boundaries -- the intersection of non-violence, justice, security and sufficiency. I was an extremely intelligent, very well-mannered teenager, but I was a teenager.
What's stayed with me for all of the years since is his philosophy of military pacifism combined with an aspect of what I guess can be called a secular liberation theology. I don't think for him it was fully formed yet (this was just before Iraq I) but I can see it in his writing ever since. (I've followed his career on a casual level; the guy is interesting, and he writes very well.) He has a deep commitment to non-violent conflict resolution and to getting the military to realize that they are the ones with the privilege in a peace-keeping situation, and thus need to be the ones who make firm but fair accommodations for those they're serving. He has a deep understanding of the psychological concepts of boundaries and autonomy, and the interactions between them, and how those apply in a conflict. He's someone who would rather take an immediate risk (like taking off a helmet to show respect while a funeral procession passes) if it fosters a better long-term relationship. He seems to understand the balance of vulnerability that permits both cooperation and power. I strongly suggest his counter-insurgency manual as insight into his head. It is tactically and psychologically brilliant, and I find some of the tactics useful for helping people build the emotional tools to recover from abuse and trauma, and to build interpersonal resilience, and to escape from abuse. Also, if DC had followed it, we might not have ISIS. But the DeVos Blackwater asshole couldn't be controlled and Don Fucking Rumsfeld was a weak piece of crap.
I also credit Mattis with getting me interested in both military history and conflict philosophy; he sent me home with a list of books, and sent a second list to my father a few weeks later. And studying war has made me a better advocate for non-violence and conflict resolution. It puts me in conflict with my peace church, but I am certain they're wrong for refusing to learn. That, by the way? Totally unnecessary. Not improper, but definitely above and beyond. How often do most people take interest in their co-workers' teenage children's intellectual development? Not often, an don't usually keep thinking about it.
Oh, and this -- he knew my father was abusive the moment he saw me with my father. Nobody knew, it was not gossip that he could have picked up. My father was very careful (and because my mother, the peace churcher, refused to live on base, she inadvertently gave my father more opportunity to be abusive until she left.) During the one duty dance, he was absolutely blunt, told me he thought my father was harming me, and told me to report my father to my father's superior. I have no idea what he saw in my father's behavior or my body language that gave it away, but he caught it, and was willing to rock a boat to convince a baggage to get help. (No, he could not have spoken on my behalf for complicated reasons, mostly having to do with separation of commands and the fact that he hadn't witnessed it.) In the 80s military? That did not happen. Baggage who complained got more bruises, and deserved them for complaining. Baggage existed to be a support for the personnel, and supports don't complain.
One more: I got no inappropriate interest off of him, and by that point, I could read it when I saw it. (I'd had four marriage proposals by my 15th birthday. And I was an officer's kid. Those E1s were taking their lives in their own hands. 
) It would have been entirely inappropriate to flirt, but the default position would be to patronize me as a child. Which he didn't do. (At that age, I was extremely sensitive to being patronized.) He recognized I might lack context, but he didn't talk down to me. I have met feminists in the officer corps; they're not that rare. My guess is that Mattis is reasonably feminist, but he's also an egalitarian, and that is far more rare in an organization that survives on hierarchy. He recognizes the inherent worth and unique talents in any mind.
My BIL served under him in Iraq II. My BIL won't talk much about his experiences and I won't out him with details, but he has said that he would follow Mattis into hell, and that the only time he felt safe were when he was on duty with Mattis. And while I recognize that what I've said above is fairly retrospective, it's informed by observation via writing and my BIL's perspective.
I will say that the Mad Dog nick sounds like typical Marine bullshit. It's half pun on his name and half Opposite Day sarcasm. Look, Marine culture is just... weird, and they have a bizarre interior sense of humor. Big guys get nick'ed Tiny, quiet ones called Motormouth. Warrior Monk is a far more accurate nickname.
I've read the context of the fun quote, and it doesn't bother me.
1) In context, I agree with the sentiment, if not the methods. A lot of us peace and justice types were calling for UN white and blue helmets for Afghanistan in the late 90s. The Taliban absolutely warranted a peace-keeping force, not just because they shoved their culture 150 years into the past, but because they were destroying anything that was still standing and the fighting amongst themselves was pushing towards something close to mutual mass suicide. MSF was having a hell of a time keeping doctors in country then -- and when MSF has issues, that's bad. If they'd been treating another ethnic group the way they treated their women, we would have called it genocide. But misogyny strikes again.
2) As a civilian, I have the privilege of the entire infrastructure of the justice system. (Which has points of severe critique -- no argument.) The contexts in which those statements were made were in reference to failed states, where the orders going in are peace-keeping in a failed system without any judicial infrastructure. It's easy to forget that in the civilian west, where we've got four centuries between us and feudalism, and that's a hell of a lot of insulation. That was absolutely not true in either Iraq 2002 or Afghanistan 2002.
3) That was a no filter moment. Which everyone has, and sometimes when we pop the clutch on our mouths without fully engaging brains, we can all be less than diplomatic. The comment was in a room full of peers, not specifically to press or part of diplomacy. That was in 2005, and by then, everyone who was in theater was running deep in the gallows humor. It's not pretty. That's a survival skill, especially when dealing with the grossly incompetent and dysfunctional civilian side. And we all remember how completely bad the Bush war machine was.
So... do I trust Mattis? With my personal body while I'm sleeping, should that unlikely event arise? Sure. Yeah. He's not a grabber, he's old enough to be my father, and if he he's interested, he's the type to have enthusiastic consent. (Or willing to wait until an equal approaches him.) To competently manage the Department of Defense? Yes. He's intelligent, he takes absolutely no bullshit while still being able to maintain diplomacy (and those two skills do not go together often) and he's dedicated to our foundational ideals. He's got both direct experience on the ground and the management side of logistics and supply thanks to CentCom. As resumes go for SecDef, he's looking very good. He will choose the Constitution over the person sitting in the Oval, and he's deeply ethical in a reasoned, complex way. To be the voice of reason of the administration? No, but I don't think he's going to try to speak for the admin -- he's not stupid, so he knows that Il Douche is a lost cause. To pound Bannon into teeny tiny splinters the first chance he gets? Oh, yeah. My bet is he accepted the nomination well aware that Hair Twitler wouldn't last long. I also suspect he feels compelled to serve to the best of his capabilities, regardless of who asked. If HRC had asked, he would have said yes to her, too.
Do I trust him to keep us out of war? I trust him to try, but that's not his call -- that's congress. Do I expect that the counter-insurgency program will be properly implemented and trained for? YES. Is that a good thing? Absolutely. Is he a hawk? Eh... That's going to take definition. I trust a military pacifist to spend time, treasure and people far more judiciously than I trust a corporate goon. Rumsfeld was a disaster in part because he had zero in-theater experience, and was insecure when dealing with the military.
And in the Bannon-Mattis cage match? My money is totally on Mattis.
