Defense Secretary Jim Mattis received the 2017 Excellence in Public Service Award from Ohio State University's John Glenn College of Public Affairs at the National Press Club here tonight for his commitment to citizenship and public leadership.
Mattis said he was humbled by the award. "It's not about me," he said. "It's about public service. We're trying to build a country here, and it's never done."
Both Mattis and Trevor Brown, dean of Glenn College, talked of the late U.S. Sen. John Glenn, who served as a Marine fighter pilot in World War II and Korea before becoming the first American to orbit the Earth. Glenn earned six Distinguished Flying Crosses and several Air Medals. He also served four terms in the Senate for Ohio.
Brown said this award has gone to many who have decorated resumes with a spirit of service over the years, but in the wake of Glenn's death this year, he wanted to find someone Glenn respected tremendously.
"There's no question that Secretary Mattis is deserving of this award tonight," he said. "This is in part the college's way to fulfill its commitment to the senator -- to bind someone he revered in his life to the life of the college."
Personal Touch
Lynn Glenn, the senator's daughter, said her father had a great admiration for Mattis, "not just that he's a Marine, but also because he's a tremendous patriot and has been a patriot like Dad for all his life. That's been his commitment."
She said her father was touched when Mattis personally visited Gold Star mothers across the country to pay his respects, and she was touched when he paid his respects at her father's funeral.
To honor the secretary, she gave him a needlepoint she had made. Her father used to give her mother and the kids a stick of Doublemint gum before he would leave on missions, she told the audience, and tell them, "I'm just going down to the store. I'll be back."
"Dad gave each of us in the family a stick of Doublemint when he went back into space when he was 77," she said. She makes the needlepoint Doublemint gum sticks for people who were helpful to her family, pivotal to her dad's service in Ohio and who brought meaning to her dad's life, she explained.
Role Models
Mattis said John Glenn was a role model. "I do not have the words to fully express my admiration and respect for Lynn's father, for Annie's husband, for a man who did what he did," he said. "We all need role models in this world. We all need them, because they inspire us. They remind us that if we look at someone like this, we can always be better the next day. We all need a code and the role models we choose to remind us of what we can be in this country give us so many beautiful opportunities.
"As we build this country in John Glenn's image," he continued. "it's good to remember it doesn't matter where you do it, where you contribute -- your family, your parish, your school district, your county, your state, your country, the military, civil service, the intelligence agencies, wherever it is -- it is a noble mission, and you have to remember that, especially when the going gets rough, and it's gotten a little rough here in our beautiful country."
Mattis said officers in the military are purposely given responsibility, but not enough authority so they can learn teamwork.
"It's going to be your teamwork -- it's working with each other and public service," he said. "It means putting aside petty grievances. It means accepting the humanity of the people standing and working next to you, not characterizing them by a certain political stripe or another, rather by their humanity, by them being the mother of a girl trying to get into college, the father of a son with MS. It's by remembering we're more connected than we are separated by those issues that have to do with our vision for this country as we all work together to turn it over in as good a shape or better than we received it. That's our obligation to the next generation."
Mattis also said no that matter how frustrated people may get, John Glenn didn't get worn out. He kept at it and held the line, treating others with a sense of decency. "As you go through your life, as you go through your career, there's greatness in every life," he said. "It's just a matter of you giving it that sort of attention that comes from putting others first. Semper Fi, Always Faithful."