Fellow Marine corroborates Platner re tattoo

[mainer]

A Marine who served with Graham Platner in Iraq and got matching tattoos with him in Croatia pushed back on a new claim, published in the New York Times on Thursday, that they deliberately chose a Nazi-style symbol.

Fifield told the paper that Platner knew his skull-and-crossbones tattoo resembled a Nazi symbol and had called it “my Totenkopf.” Platner has consistently denied this charge, which was first reported by Jewish Insider and CNN in the fall. Fifield appears to have been the source for both of those stories.
(Snip)

Phil Proschko, who served with Platner in the Marines, dismissed this claim in a brief interview with Zeteo on Friday.

“No, we did not purposely get hateful fucking shit because we’re racist people,” he said. “We got matching tattoos because we were in our 20s, drunk in Croatia, and that’s it. That’s all that fucking happened.”
Proschko, who participated in a Platner veterans town hall several weeks ago, told the story of their tattoos this way: “We went, we got matching tattoos that we pulled off the wall, or it was out of a book, I don’t remember. We thought it looked cool, something to commemorate what happened, all the people we lost in our unit in Ramadi.”

https://open.substack.com/pub/zeteo/p/platners-fellow-marine-pushes-back?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

[orangecrush]

1. Thank you for sharing this

Funny how this account isn't plastered all over the media like some right wing operatives bullshit.

[OrangeJoe]

14. Consider the source

Ms Lyndsey Fifield, who is leading the charge on this story, worked for The Heritage Foundation as a Social Media Manager, so yeah she's a pro at drumming up outrage. She was one of the founders of "Justice for Kavanaugh, building up support for that drunken frat boy and covering up his misdeeds. Take her story with a big grain of salt. The control of the Senate and another two years of Trump rampaging through our life is at stake. The right wingers are pulling out all stops to protect vulnerable Republican members.

[ret5hd]

2. so why not get it removed?

[SalamanderSleeps]

3. He has had it covered up.

Maine Senate candidate Platner says tattoo recognized as Nazi symbol has been covered

https://apnews.com/article/maine-platner-senate-trump-mills-tattoo-collins-fa8328a3c8aa5d5e0f34adb379e977b8

[Skittles]

7. how convenient

[Lancero]

11. So he didn't know what it was when he got it, but leaned into it later after finding out, only getting rid of it...

When it became politically problematic for him.

If he didn't have himself some political ambition, he'd still be wearing that shit with pride. To paraphrase another group, Pride in his Boys.

[SSJVegeta]

13. To him it didnt symbolize hatred ever. It symbolized his dead friends who gave their life so he can go home.

Even knowing the origins, it didnt remotely symbolize to him hatred, but rather the deeply intertwined connections to the people in his unit.

He didn't wait to remove that tattoo in 2025 because he is a hateful nazi. But likely because it was one of the last material reminders of the people who paid the ultimate price.

Symbols aren't horrible because of what they intrinsically represent. They cant be, because they will almost always be subjectively interpreted. Their meanings are rooted on the actions of the people who carry them and the cultures that maintain them.

The swastika is similar but reversed. The longest known meaning of the swastika is not Nazism and hatred.

The swastika (known as "Manji" in Japan) is a Japanese Buddhist symbol that doesnt remotely represent hatred. It means good fortune, peace -and the footprint of Buddha.

But Hitler flipped it into something else entirely.

Platner's skull was the last remaining material reminder of the people who gave everything. He got rid of it because it offended other people. But the personal significance was beyond what any of us can imagine in the enormous sacrifices it represented by his friends.

[Uncle Joe]

5. Kicked and recommended

Thanks for the thread mainer

[ornotna]

6. Some people will never be satisfied

I accept his explanation.

Time to move forward.

[Celerity]

16. The accusation appeared in a story relating Lyndsey Fifield's experiences with Platner when they dated in the 2010s.

Fifield, a conservative activist who previously led a PR campaign defending Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh from allegations of sexual assault, accused Platner of being physical with her, among other claims.

Fifield told the paper that Platner knew his skull-and-crossbones tattoo resembled a Nazi symbol and had called it “my Totenkopf.” Platner has consistently denied this charge, which was first reported by Jewish Insider and CNN in the fall. Fifield appears to have been the source for both of those stories.

Jewish Insider

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Insider

snip

Jewish Insider has been characterized as right-leaning, neoconservative, and right-wing. The New Republic has described Jewish Insider as a pro-Israel media outlet which falsely accuses Israel's critics of antisemitism.

In September 2024, Jewish Insider published an article repeating a claim by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel that Representative Rashida Tlaib had said Nessel was targeting pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Michigan due to being Jewish. The false claim was debunked by the Metro Times. Jewish Insider later updated its article, revising the wording without adding a correction by changing "claimed" to "suggested".

[Ponietz]

8. Thanks for supporting Democrats!

[GenThePerservering]

9. Not sure why some people on this forum

don't remember being young, drunk and stupid. Or maybe they were always perfect.

[niyad]

12. I was young once, sometimes acted stupidly, but was never drunk. Far

from perfect, but not drunk. And no nazi tattoos.

[BidenRocks]

15. There was not enough alcohol

to make me want a tattoo.
I was in the shops with friends. watching and thinking.
Ain't no way! What if I change?
Anyway, not a fan.

[mainer]

17. Getting rid of a tattoo is a painful, lengthy process

How many men would bother?

Tattoo removal is something where people really need to seek out the right treatment and usually that’s with a slow, methodical treatment approach in a dermatology office using either a Q-switched laser or pico-type wavelengths,” said Joel Cohen, MD, associate clinical professor of dermatology at the University of California at Irvine.

And that slow approach means your tattoo isn’t going to just disappear overnight. The process is pretty lengthy with multiple laser treatment sessions required to accomplish complete removal. Although it depends on the design, size, and color of your ink, laser tattoo removal can take 1 to 10 sessions, with 6-week healing periods in between sessions.

https://www.menshealth.com/health/a35614963/tattoo-removal-facts-cost-risks/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=mgu_ga_mnh_md_pmx_prog_org_us_22327065516&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22333585820&gbraid=0AAAAACrVUPltwk8buNGSjURTfDf9s2kX1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwio_RBhDMARIsAJPveNOiOzWZeGqe1FCA-lft3hqgGQU_ocTXlYkVftXvMFaIWCmTDBCzup0aAkCyEALw_wcB