Jim Mattis

James Norman Mattis was born on September 8, 1950 in Pullman, Washington. He is the son of John West Mattis (a merchant mariner) and Lucille (Proulx) Mattis. His mom immigrated from Canada to the United States as an infant and worked in Army Intelligence in South Africa during World War Two. Mattis’ dad moved to Richland, Washington to work at a plant that supplied fissile material for the Manhattan Project. Mattis was raised in a bookish house where there was no television.