HOLDING THE LINE by Guy M. Snodgrass is the story of the Department of Defense under General James Mattis during the early years of the Donald Trump administration.
Guy M. (Bus) Snodgrass served as the Chief Speechwriter and Communications Director for Secretary of Defense, General James Mattis during the first two years of the Trump Administration. Snodgrass had been in tough situations before. This was probably the worst.
Mattis was totally devoted to the US Military. His job was to protect the United States, uphold the Constitution, and build and support the best military he could. He believed the military was underfunded and needed to be improved. Military members were supposed to be nonpartisan and he worked to maintain that in an administration that demanded loyalty only to itself. He put in extremely long hours at the Pentagon and expected his staff to do the same. He recognized that he was obliged to support the President, not an easy job with Donald Trump.
Snodgrass’s job was to support Mattis by providing the information he needed to get his message across by writing speeches that would sound like what Mattis would say. He worked with a team that attempted to maintain good relationships with other departments and countries.
At the beginning of his service, Mattis had others with whom he could work, especially Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster. They were referred to as “The Adults in the Room. By the time Snodgrass left, they were gone, replaced by Trump puppets.
It didn’t take too long for Snodgrass to realize that Trump had his own agenda and he didn’t care who or what was damaged by his actions. Allies were shocked when Trump withdrew the US from established and relationships treaties. He complained they were not paying their fair share of the costs and didn’t realize that a strong Europe protected the US and was a good investment for the US. When he and his team wrote speeches relating to Trump for Mattis to deliver, they built a scenario that made Trump look good.
One big problem was that Trump didn’t listen to what he was told in his briefings. He had his own agenda. There were times when he would go off-script and contradict the points that he was supposed to be presenting, often to the shock of both the US representatives and those of other countries. But Mattis often slowed or ignored some of his actions.
For people who really cared about the US military, it was a very difficult road to travel and Snodgrass paid the price. ( )

This is an inside look at the office of the Secretary of Defense James Mattis by one of his speechwriters. It was an interesting look at how this man operated, what his beliefs are and how difficult it was to deal with the Trump administration. Author Snodgrass was not someone opposed to Trump and admired many things about him, but one thing was his failure to grasp big concepts such as long-term goals or the importance of maintaining allies. It was an interesting look at some difficult moments in both the Mattis and Trump reigns. ( )

Some of the material felt less accessible and more superfluous, but nevertheless this memoir paints a consistent and intriguing image of Mattis' time as a Trump appointee. ( )

Very interesting book written by Gen. Mattis's main speech writer during Mattis's time as Secretary of Defense under the Trump administration. The book is essentially an autobiography of Snodgrass combined with a short biography of Gen. Mattis. It gives some interesting insights into the problems and reasons that Mattis resigned under an inconsistent and chaotic administration as other experts were shown the revolving door. The author is factual and comes across as both disappointed and sad at the inability of Mattis to remain as "the only adult in the room" under increasing pressure to declare "loyalty" to the President. Overall, an important document for this time in history. ( )