Retired Marine Gen. James Mattis mentioned his mother, who once worked at the Pentagon, in his opening statement during his Senate confirmation hearing Thursday to serve as secretary of defense in the Trump administration.
"Finally, on a personal note, I've worked at the Pentagon twice in my career," Mattis said. "A few people may know I'm not the first person in my family to do so, when, in the wartime spring of 1942, my mother was 20 years old and working military intelligence. She was part of the first government employees to move into the still unfinished Pentagon."
"She had come to America as an infant and lives today on the banks of the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest," Mattis continued. "Little could she imagine in her youth that more than 90 years after she immigrated to this country and 75 years after she first walked through the doors of the War Department, one of her sons would be sitting here in front of you today. Thank you."
