The men who stormed Normandy didn't ask the French if they wanted to be liberated.
Now a Florida tattoo artist is calling their grandchildren war criminals.
Brady Martinson just banned every active-duty service member and veteran from his Largo shop – and the backlash was swift enough to shut down his Yelp page entirely.
Martinson Posted It Himself
This wasn't a slip of the tongue.
It wasn't a private message that leaked.
Revival Tattoo Collective owner Brady Martinson sat down and typed this out on June 23, then posted it for the world to see: "My opinion is that the military is a bunch of war criminals and law enforcement kills babies and unarmed citizens in the street."
He wasn't done.
He followed it with a message for anyone still unclear: "Once again for the slow ones – if you are ex military or currently serving just don't come to the shop. You will be turned away."
He called our troops war criminals.
He said cops kill babies.
https://twitter.com/AGJamesUthmeier/status/2070296539000357044?s=20
Then he signed it, posted it, and dared anyone to argue with him.
When Fox News Digital reached the shop for comment, a spokesperson delivered this: "Yeah I'm booked up I can't take any clients military or civilian. Thanks for your interest on my opinion."
That's the whole response.
A man who built his business tattooing patriotic imagery on American skin – anchors, flags, "Death Before Dishonor" – decided the people who wear those symbols are war criminals.
The Internet Disagreed
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who represents Pinellas County where Largo sits, called it out immediately.
"I am beyond disgusted to see the discriminatory treatment of our law-enforcement and first responders from a tattoo shop in Largo," she wrote. "It's a real shame that people choose to act like this and then hide behind the very people that protect them when stuff hits the fan."
The Yelp reviews poured in so fast the platform had to suspend new comments entirely.
By Thursday night, Martinson was celebrating on Facebook.
"Well, would ya look at that. We made it, ma!" he posted, referencing the Fox News coverage. "On a real note, I can't wait to be interviewed, stay tuned. This is about to be good."
https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/2069999186230100220?s=20
He thinks this is his moment.
A reporter tracked him down for comment.
Someone responding claimed to be his lawyer.
The message: "We'll be in contact."
This Is Happening More Often Than You Think
This isn't the first business owner to go viral by insulting the people who defend this country.
A Brooklyn coffee shop just made national headlines for banning a congressman over his support for Israel – a story that triggered a full DOJ investigation into potential discrimination.
The Left has spent years building a cultural infrastructure that tells young people the military is evil, that cops are murderers, and that patriotism is a form of extremism.
Martinson didn't come up with "war criminals" on his own.
He absorbed it from years of media coverage, college campus rhetoric, and social media bubbles that treat American service members as villains.
And then he decided to make it his brand.
He also missed something about the business he's in: tattoo culture in America was built on the military.
https://twitter.com/10TampaBay/status/2070474663566753979?s=20
Historians trace the first American tattoo parlor to a German immigrant who tattooed Civil War soldiers in 1846.
By 1925, nearly 90 percent of Navy sailors were tattooed.
The art form he makes his living practicing has military DNA running through every inch of it.
He's using a craft perfected by the people he's banning to insult the people who perfected it.
Brady Martinson wanted attention.
He wanted his moment.
He got it – along with a Yelp page so bombed the platform had to pull the plug, a congresswoman calling him out by name, and a national audience that now knows exactly what he thinks of the men and women who kept him free enough to think it.
Sources:
- Rachel del Guidice, "Florida tattoo shop refuses service to military and veterans for being 'war criminals,'" Fox News, June 25, 2026.
- "Largo tattoo shop goes viral for saying it won't serve law enforcement, military," WTSP 10 Tampa Bay, June 26, 2026.
- Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (@RepLuna), Twitter/X, June 25, 2026.
- Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok), Twitter/X, June 24, 2026.
- Adam Braatz, "Military Ink: Veterans, Tattoos, and Post-Service Employability," LinkedIn, February 28, 2023.
