Graham Platner attacks Chris Kyle in May 2024 podcast remarks
Graham Platner, a Maine Senate candidate running against Sen. Susan Collins, said in a May 2024 podcast interview that chris kyle's stories about how many people he was shooting tracked with what he witnessed in Ramadi. He made the remarks on the Green Beret Chronicle Show and also suggested Kyle may have inflated his kill numbers.
Platner said, "[Kyle's] stories about how many people he was shooting certainly tracked with the behavior I witnessed [in Ramadi]" and added, "It's relatively easy to get high numbers like that if you're a little less discriminating in your fire than, say, a more professional unit would be." He also said, "I didn't know who these guys were," when referring to Task Unit Bruiser.
Green Beret Chronicle Show
Platner said he felt like people were telling him Task Unit Bruiser were "amazing heroes" and "the paragon of leadership." He added, "I almost felt like there was like a weird practical joke being played on me by the war that, like all these years later, I'm like, having to like... People are telling me like 'Oh, look how great this guy is, these guys are amazing heroes,' this whole incredible thing," and, "The paragon of leadership, and I'm just sitting there like, 'Am I living in like an alternate reality?' Because this is the exact opposite of my experience."
Ramadi and Task Unit Bruiser
Platner claimed members of Task Unit Bruiser shot unarmed civilians from their position at the Government Center in Ramadi. He said he felt the group was being treated as heroes, while describing his own account of what he saw in Ramadi as the opposite of that praise.
The remarks have landed in the middle of Platner's Senate campaign. He is running against Collins, who joined the bipartisan majority that voted 77-23 to authorize the Iraq war in 2002, and Platner told that "Susan Collins voted to send me to Iraq."
Chris Kyle and American Sniper
Kyle published his autobiography American Sniper in 2012. He was murdered at his Texas ranch in 2013 by a former Marine whom Kyle had taken under his wing while the man suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. The 2014 Clint Eastwood film American Sniper, starring Bradley Cooper, was based on Kyle's autobiography.
Platner joined the Marines in 2004 and deployed to Ramadi in 2006. The Bruiser allegations originally appeared in now-deleted Reddit comments around 2021 and were later expanded by Seth Hettena in 2024, with Platner becoming the loudest voice to repeat them. Jocko Willink has strenuously denied any improper conduct and threatened to sue Hettena, leaving Platner's comments as part of a broader dispute that now sits inside a Senate race.
