“At the time, I was proud…that I was good at it…I was proud of my service,” Platner said. “And for quite some time, actually, it was the most important thing that ever happened to me.”
“I derived a lot of pride and purpose from it,” Platner said of his military service. “As I’ve gotten older and come to grips with the fact that the violence I took part in effectively had no purpose, or it had no benefit for the United States. I don’t think that the war in Iraq did anything good for the American people.”
By 2021, Platner’s change of heart appeared on Reddit.
“It was always difficult to square my politics with the job,” Platner wrote in a May 12, 2021, post. “Every day was a stark reminder of the ethical horror show that imperialist adventures often turn into.”