In Gen. Jim Mattis, Trump chooses a ‘warrior monk’ as secretary of defense

Donald Trump was expecting a very different answer when he asked retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, at a meeting last month, for his views on the use of waterboarding. Mattis, who served in the Marines from 1969 until his retirement in 2013, represents a big change from the current secretary of defense, the bookish Ashton Carter, a former Harvard professor who was trained as a physicist.