Mattis vs. Donilon: Wow, no one even called to tell him he was being replaced?

I am
told that General Mattis was traveling and in a meeting
when an aide passed him a note telling him that the Pentagon had announced his
replacement as head of Central Command. It was news to him -- he hadn't
received a phone call or a heads-up from anyone at the Pentagon or the White
House.

I asked
a friend about that. He wrote back:

...the commander-in-chief can make a change
whenever he wants and give no reason. That is right and proper under our system
of government.

But there's also the matter of common courtesy
to an uncommon man. Here is what one person wrote to me: "What message does it
send to the Services when the one leader known for his war-fighting rather than
diplomatic or bureaucratic political skills is retired early via one sentence
in the Pentagon's daily press handout? Even in battle, Mattis was inclusive of
all under his command. He took the time to pull together his driver and guards
after every day's rotation on the battlefield, telling them what he thought he
had learned and asking them for input. Surely senior administration officials
could have found the time to be gracious. But they didn't."  Bing
West, admittedly a friend of Mattis and fellow
Marine, tells me: "It was injudicious to truncate Mattis's command time because
his toughness was well-known across the Middle East. The image of a determined
warfighter is precisely what a commander-in-chief should cherish when trying to
exert leverage upon a recalcitrant Iran."