A reformed street-gang member has traded in her colors for fatigues, hoping to serve her country in the Persian Gulf to honor the memory of an ex-boyfriend, gunned down in Brooklyn while on leave from the Navy.
“He’s watching,” said Yanyka Troutman, 19, a chemical-operations specialist in the Army Reserves.
Troutman, a former Blood, was inspired to join the military by Kevin Robinson, a 21-year-old who dreamed of a better life but was killed at a Brooklyn party last September.
“He’s not going to be there or see me in my uniform, and that bothers me,” said Troutman.
Troutman, a private, is waiting for the call to head to Kuwait. Her unit, the 320 Chemical Battalion Unit, located in Jamaica, Queens, is “on alert,” she said.
“I’m going. It’s just a matter of when,” said Troutman, trained to operate nuclear, biological and chemical detection and decontamination equipment.
Before Troutman signed up for the Reserves and began her studies at a Maryland college, she lived in The Bronx and ran with the Bloods.
She met Robinson while she was a freshman at Chelsea Vocational HS in Greenwich Village. They dated for three years and parted as friends.
Robinson later joined the Navy, and Troutman – who transferred to Columbus HS in The Bronx – stepped away from the Bloods.
“I started seeing too many people die around me,” she said.
After giving up the gang life in 2000, Troutman connected with The National Council for Unity – a nonprofit program that teaches self-empowerment skills to gang members.
“Everything I wanted in life, it gave to me,” Troutman said.
A year later, she was president of the council’s Columbus chapter and won the program’s top honor: the Courage Award.
“I was a follower, now I’m a leader,” Troutman said.