Veteran & Maine US Senate Candidate Graham Platner: Combat Fitness, True Strength, & The Defense Insecurity Complex of Hegseth, RFK Jr., and Elon Musk

About this episode

Graham Platner discusses his experiences as a veteran and his views on fitness and strength in the context of politics and power.

Graham Platner is a Marine Corps and Army infantry veteran with combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and a candidate for US Senate in Maine. He is also a lifelong student of fitness and strength whose training evolved from grunt-era running and calisthenics to CrossFit, Rob Shaul's Mountain Tactical programming, and Jim Wendler's 5-3-1. — He joins Andrew Vontz & Jonathan Kaplan on United States of Sweat p/b Choose the Hard Way to talk combat fitness, the multi-hour firefight his squad survived on zero water because everybody was fit, and what true strength actually looks like. — Graham has seen real strength under fire. What he sees in Hegseth, RFK Jr. and Elon Musk is masculine insecurity with access to power, and the difference between power OVER people and power WITH them. — Andrew joined live from the cancer floor at Maine Health Hospital in Portland, Maine, three days into a five-day chemo drip. Go to https://alwaysthehardway.substack.com/ or @hardwaypod on Instagram for a full health update. Thank you for all of the positivity and support. Please keep it coming. — United States of Sweat is the series where politicians and policymakers join us to share stories about…

People in this episode

Host: Andrew Vontz

Guest: Graham Platner

Topics covered

• combat fitness
• true strength
• masculine insecurity
• politics
• health

Keywords

• Marine Corps
• Army
• Iraq
• Afghanistan
• CrossFit
• Mountain Tactical
• Jim Wendler

Mentioned in this episode

Products: CrossFit, Rob Shaul's Mountain Tactical programming, Jim Wendler's 5-3-1

Books & works: RIDING WITH, Riding With newsletter, United States of Sweat, Choose the Hard Way

Places: Iraq, Afghanistan, Maine, Portland, Washington

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