Stay focussed, Mattis tells US troops as he bids farewell to Pentagon

Outgoing US Defence Secretary James Mattis, who resigned due to his differences with President Donald Trump over policy issues, in a farewell message on Monday urged American troops and defence employees to stay focussed on their mission.

Quoting a telegram, which was sent by former president Abraham Lincoln to General Ulysses Grant in February 1865, near the end of the American Civil War, Mattis said, "Let nothing which is transpiring, change, hinder, or delay your military movements, or plans."