Michael.
You are a journalist. Journalism is probably the easiest fucking thing to be credentialed in, that's why folks of your mental caliber are drawn to it.
Thus you are not qualified in any way imaginable to tell the US Military what they're supposed to do. Period. You are a gnat telling an elephant what it should do, with an unearned arrogance that you've wielded for so long that any sense of self-awareness you may have ever had has been numbed to it. Which is a very typical thing for a journalist, and this is why everyone justifiably hates you and your ilk.
You have zero military experience. If you did, you wouldn't have taken such a demonstrably idiotic position on this debate. I, on the other hand, not only have military experience, I also served in the same branch as Platner and what's more, I served during the same time as Platner and inside the same unit that cataloged and photographed Marine and sailor tattoos.
I've been spending the day talking to others on this app about my experience working in Combat Camera cataloging and identifying what your side of the political spectrum deems "problematic". This includes gang-affiliated tattoos and white supremacist tattoos.
Now here's the thing, Michael. Marines love their tats, and as an illustrator serving in the USMC, I had requests all the time from other Marines about a sick tat idea they had. And you know what the funny thing is? Nearly every single one of them involved a skull of some sort. This also applied to extant tattoos that we had to photograph and catalog. Marines love skull tats like none other.
And you're probably thinking in that dim little journalist mind of yours that I'm proving your point. I'm not. I'm also a student of WWII history. I draw a comic now that is essentially rooted in WWII history and make callbacks and references to it all the time that my readers are quick to detect and identify. You see, the totenkopf is a very distinct skull and crossbone design. All skull and crossbone designs are, really. The skull and the bones immediately trigger a primal response in our brain. That's why pirates used it on their flags. That's why manufacturers use it to label poison, and have done so for several centuries now. It is not a design that lends itself to "you've seen one, you've seen them all" given how the chemistry of our brains react to it. Even the tiniest distinctions of the design are enough to make our brain separate them as if they were night and day.
I should know, because during my enlistment I saw so many fucking skulls decorating the arms and legs and other regions of US Marines that nearly every single one stood out in some way. Every other Marine will likely tell you the same thing.
Do you know how many people have seen Schindler's List?
Better yet, do you know how many SS and Holocaust movies (and movies adjacent to both) have been produced for film and TV by Hollywood? Over 400 professional, projected and broadcast movies on the subject. And every one of those movies features someone in an SS uniform with that incredibly distinctive design that Himmler himself approved.
And here you are doing your best to pretend that hardly anyone today can identify that symbol -- including you and your fellow leftist journalists who have, during the past 30 years, invoke the name of Hitler and his National Socialists EVERY FUCKING CHANCE YOU GET.
And what's more, you are telling my military to use the discredited ADL as a source to identify hateful symbols. The ADL is not a credible source and nobody knows this better than Hegseth, given how the ADL reacted to his tattoo and how they contributed to Charlie Kirk's murder (something that likely delighted you to no end.)
They don't need to do that, Michael. Like I told you, I photographed and identified tattoos in the Marines for just this very purpose. And what very few objectionable tattoos we ever found, they were gang-related. I never once, in all of those thousands of skull tattoos sported by Marines, saw a single fucking totenkopf.
You know why? Because those clowns were weeded out long before they got to my purview. One of the fellows I was with during the Initial Strength Test right before Boot Camp Receiving Week was over had a "Only God Could Judge Me" tattoo. Homeboy was on a bus within a few hours of that, heading home back to the ghetto and his gangster friends.
The US Marines and the military know what they're doing, you arrogant pile of shit, and you have zero authority telling us how to handle our affairs.
And one more thing: If Platner had ever showed off his tattoo to his command while he was in, he would have been drummed out very quickly. The USMC cares about only three things: The first is the Mission, the second is troop welfare, and the third is our image. That's why Only God Can Judge Me was pulled out boot camp that day and sent packing. We don't want gangsters, commies, or nazis who can potentially make us look bad down the road. And an SS death's head tattoo certainly fucking qualifies in that regard.
To be safe, all US military personnel should be required to consult the ADL's "hate symbol" database before getting any tats. Even if 99% of the population wouldn't have the foggiest idea that a certain symbol is Nazi-related. You never know what might make you an accidental Nazi