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James Norman Mattis (born September 8, 1950) is the 26th United States Secretary of Defense and a former United States Marine Corps general. Mattis commissioned in the Marine Corps through the Reserve Officers' Training Corps after graduating from Central Washington University. A career Marine, he gained a reputation for intellectualism and eventually advanced to the rank of general. Mattis served in the Persian Gulf War, Afghanistan, and Iraq. From 2007 to 2010, he commanded the United States Joint Forces Command and concurrently served as NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Transformation. He was Commander of United States Central Command from 2010 to 2013. After retiring from the military, he served in several private sector roles, including as a board member of Theranos. Mattis was nominated as Secretary of Defense by President-elect Trump and confirmed by the Senate on January 20, 2017. He needed a waiver from Congress to allow his nomination to be considered, as he had only been separated from the military for three years and U.S. federal law requires at least seven years of retirement for former military personnel to be appointed Secretary of Defense. As Secretary of Defense, Mattis affirmed the United States' commitment to defending longtime ally South Korea in the wake of the 2017 North Korea crisis. An opponent of proposed collaboration with China and Russia, Mattis stressed their threat to the American-led world order. Mattis occasionally voiced his disagreement with certain Trump administration policies, opposing the proposed withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and budget cuts that hamper the ability to monitor the impacts of climate change.In an "unprecendented" resignation on December 21, after substantial disagreement with the foreign policy of the Trump administration, Mattis openly criticized Trump's foreign policy views. In his letter of resignation, Mattis warned that Trump's worldview was leading to an immense decline in the United States' standing, undercutting "the global order the United States helped build over the past seven decades." In response, Trump personally insulted Mattis online on Twitter and ordered him fired by January 1, two months before the date that Mattis planned to leave.