re: Retired Green Beret officer: Mattis "left my men to die."

I read the book, "The Only Thing Worth Dying For", which tells this story. Amerine and his ODA troop were the first US personnel to be inserted into southern Afghanistan, with the mission of taking Khandahar. The area was particularly dangerous, because it held most of the Pashtun tribal area, which was densely populated. The US had already teamed up in northern Afghanistan and were kicking arse.

A friendly fire bomb hit them and messed them up pretty bad. The marine base, which was the closest friendly base, wouldn't come help, apparently due to risk of casualties. Mattis was apparently the commanding officer at the marine base, or one of them.

I didn't put any of this together until now. I completely forgot it was Mattis who was one of the commanding officers at the marine base in the book. Amerine and his men were true badasses though, that I can tell u.