00:00Hey everyone, Grant Plattner here. I want to talk to you about something. In 2007, when I was a young
00:05infantry sergeant in the Marine Corps, myself and some machine gunners I served in Fallujah and
00:10Ramadi with were on our third deployment. We were in a naval vessel and we pulled in for a liberty
00:14port in Split, Croatia. We went ashore to do the thing that young Marines do, which tends to be
00:20carousing and sometimes getting tattoos. We wanted to get something that represented our jobs, our
00:27service, fighting in Fallujah and Ramadi as machine gunners. We went ashore, we found a tattoo parlor
00:33after a fair amount of heavy carousing, and we found a tattoo on the wall, a piece of flash that
00:39looked like a terrifying skull and crossbones. We thought it looked cool, and so we got it.
00:45I have had this tattoo for the last 18 years. I re-enlisted into the United States Army with this
00:52tattoo where I was screened for hate and gang related tattoos. I worked for the State Department
00:58as a contractor where I got a full physical, which included screening my tattoos. I've gone through
01:05life with this thing, taking my shirt off, having photographs taken, videos taken. I've been very,
01:11very open in my life with the fact I had a skull and crossbones on my chest because that's what I
01:16thought it was. It's come to my attention that it has a stark resemblance to a symbol that is used by
01:24neo-Nazis, and I want to say that was not the intent at all, and the idea that I've been going
01:30around with something like that utterly horrifies me. I know that symbols like this can be incredibly
01:35damaging to people, and the idea that I've had it all these years and it could have been read like
01:39that is incredibly troubling. I have lived a life dedicated to anti-fascism, anti-racism,
01:48and anti-Nazism. I think that racism and anti-Semitism are a long scourge on our society and a long
01:55scourge on our politics, and I think it has no place in our world. For that reason, I have gone and
02:02gotten it covered up. Last day, I went to a tattoo parlor, and I got this to cover up the skull and
02:09crossbones. It's a Celtic knot with some imagery around dogs because my wife and Amy and I have
02:15two wonderful dogs that we love a lot. This far more represents who I am now than even the skull
02:21and crossbones did, which I thought that it was. This has come up because the establishment is trying
02:29to throw everything it can at me. It is terrified of what we are trying to build here. Every second
02:35we spend talking about a tattoo I got in the Marine Corps is a second we don't talk about Medicare for
02:41all. It's a second that we don't talk about raising taxes on the wealthy. It's a second we're not talking
02:46about the material struggles of Mainers as they try to scrape through a system that at its core is
02:53trying to rob them. And that's why tonight, I'm just going back right out on the road. We're holding
02:59a town hall in Ogunquit, where much like I've been doing for the past month, going around the state
03:04of Maine, making myself accessible to Mainers in their communities, so I can listen to them. I can
03:10hear about what it is they need to change in our political system. And that is what I'm going to
03:16continue dedicating my time to. Thank you all very much. And I really appreciate your support through
03:21all of this. I will say it is deeply hard for me personally, but all the outpouring of support,
03:27telling me to stick with it, telling me that this doesn't matter, telling me that this means that
03:32the system is scared. It means the world to me. And I want to say thank you to all of you who have done so.
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