Nick Lloyd

Meh. I get some of the appeal but he's not exactly my cup of tea. Although I don't vote in Maine so it doesn't matter in the slightest what I think.

I agree the fact that he didn’t think to have it removed for decades is concerning.

I don’t know man, my BN had a lot of guys with skull tattoos and I honestly couldn’t tell you which ones were secret hate symbols and which were just run of the mill skulls. Punisher skulls were incredibly popular at that time (and was even a sister unit’s unofficial insignia).

That is a more concerning issue, yes. Total lack of judgment.

This in my opinion is a far better question to ask. Even if the answer is “I didn’t really think about it”…yeah that’s still poor judgment.

I learned about it, sure, but you generally don’t pay attention to the specific uniforms a guy wears because it’s not critical to the story.

Idk to me, history buff refers more to what generals and units fought at Market Garden or Okinawa, not what insignias were on the German uniforms. But to each his own.

I mean, I’m a history buff and I didn’t know what it was until this story broke. I think you overestimate how many people are this deep into it.

Also he pretty famously had it covered up during the campaign.

The only reg I recall at the time (late aughts) was nothing on the hands, neck, or face, but other than that nobody was required to pre clear tattoo ideas with their LT (although later in life many probably wish they had).

I don’t know, I just find the story of an enlisted marine wandering around the bars of a non English speaking country and deciding to get a skull tattoo that he knew nothing about incredibly plausible given the Joes I’ve known in my time in the Army. Now why he never got it removed is another story.

Mills won’t win. I was just up in Maine over Xmas and there are Platner signs in every yard. They love the guy, despite his flaws.

Poor judgment/lack of self awareness for sure, but again, that’s baked in to some degree.

All I’ve learned from this discourse is a lot of people on Bluesky have never known a single enlisted infantryman. They get dumb tattoos without thinking ALL THE TIME. You run a veteran, you’re going to have shit like this pop up lol

He would have been required to do Infantry Basic Course as a LT, but the others (Airborne, Ranger, etc) are “optional”. It’s possible given his timeframe the Guard just told him to return to his unit for potential deployment, but he absolutely should have done them as a Captain.

I remember from my time in the Gulag that RTB keeps a card on file for every past student, and I really want to see his. (Zero chance an infantry officer didn’t get the opportunity to go). I would bet peer evals got him.

He really encapsulates a certain type of GWOT vetbro who just can’t understand how a few more war crimes wouldn’t have won us the whole damn thing.

I would argue the better question to ask is why he didn’t get it covered up for a decade. I suspect his answer would be something like “I didn’t really think about it”, but that still shows some poor judgment.

This also implies a drunk enlisted man in Croatia understands the tattoo shop he’s in is Nazi-curious. I imagine the language barrier created part of the problem.

That assertion rests on a lot of assumptions. I think the simpler and more likely case is he was a drunk enlisted marine who saw a skull tattoo in Croatia and didn’t know what it was about. If you’ve ever known an enlisted infantryman, it makes more sense.

Possibly. I think the more likely case is they just don’t care about the stuff outside of the issues. Also, it’s a state full of contrarians. People in the media and online telling them they’re not supposed to like a guy just makes them like him more.

This exactly. Social media is not real life and Bluesky is even less so. I was just in Maine over Xmas and you see Platner signs in every other yard. All the Bluesky accounts screaming he’s “disqualified” over a tattoo he got as a drunk marine are not going to keep Maine voters from liking the guy.

I wonder if the fact that Dems view a GWOT veteran getting out and taking a job with one of the few companies that was willing to hire vets at that time as being a “problematic” part of his bio is a key indicator of why they continue to hemorrhage working class voters and lose winnable elections.. 🤷‍♂️

I think the lesson Trump taught us by winning after the Access Hollywood tape came out is if people like what you’re saying, they will ignore everything else about you.

That’s just On Here. In rural Maine I saw signs for him in every other yard. People love him there, and I’m sure he’ll win the primary by a mile. The general? Who knows. Susan Collins is great at pulling rabbits out of her hat.

Have … have you seen the rest of Congress???…

Bluesky just loves to do the Oppression Olympics, don’t they?

In fairness, every US military base I’ve ever been on had its own school.

I would bet any amount of money they’re micro peens all the way down.

If a Dem president tried to hold money from Oklahoma over literally anything they would be clamoring for civil war.

Yeah I legitimately don’t understand why any non chode still goes there. Any legitimate institution should have walked away a year ago or more.