Troy Yocum and Active Heroes
Folks have been asking us about Troy Yocum, an Iraq veteran who claims that he walked more than seven thousand miles across the country to raise money for veterans issues. From his Wiki page;
Inspired by his World War II grandfather, who took his own life, and a close military friend, who lost his home after returning from deployment, Yocum decided to make it his personal mission to help struggling veterans.
Yocum began a 16-month journey, dubbed “The Drum Hike” on April 17, 2010 at the Kentucky Derby Festival’s Thunder Over Louisville celebration. Yocum bangs his drum when entering towns and cities to bring attention to his cause and carries a bat for mayors and governors to sign. Averaging 20 miles per day, the hike would take him, his wife, and two dogs over more than seven thousand miles and 37 major U.S. cities by the time they make it home.
Yocum’s goal is to raise five million dollars and was sponsored by nonprofit Soldiers’ Angels.
Due to the extreme physical activity, Yocum has suffered several different medical complications. While in Colorado, he suffered an attack of kidney stones, which required hospitalization and in January 2011, his foot became infected and hence slowed the hike.
In January 2011, Soldier’s Angels pulled their support for Yocum due to concern for his health and well being.
According to unnamed sources, Soldiers’ Angels provided him with a support vehicle which he would ride from town-to-town, get out at the city limits and start beating his drum through town, as if he had been walking the whole time. I’m told that he gained 40 pounds while walking across the country. That’s pretty hard to do when you’re walking twenty miles/day. When someone ambushed him and walked with him for 2-3 miles, Yocum got shin splints – an injury from being out of shape.
I’m told that Soldiers’ Angels lost about $140,000 supporting Yocum and they only got about $11,000 in donations from him. That’s probably the reason they pulled support from him, not concerns about his health.
Yocum is a veteran of OIF, but according to his mates, he was in Kuwait. He was injured and evacuated, but they claim that he slipped in the shower. They also tell me that the only casualties they suffered during their time there, were from traffic accidents.
Yocum was a trained infantryman, assigned to the 1/151st Infantry, but he was awarded no Combat Infantryman Badge for his time there, probably because he wasn’t engaged in any combat. According to his FOIA, Yocum spent about eleven years in service, in the Guard, and left as a Private First Class, although he claims that he was a specialist. His mates claim that he was suspected of malingering and that influenced his decision to leave the Guard.
He is currently at Active Heroes, an organization that claims that it’s main mission in life is to eliminate veterans’ suicide. A worthy endeavor, indeed. Out of the seventeen people on Board, according to the their website, only six (including Troy) are veterans – I would think that number is low considering their stated mission.
Some other organizations that he’s worked with are claiming that Yocum isn’t delivering what he promised them and that seems to be his Modus Operandi. But there’s also evidence that he is involved with unsavory elements – for example, here’s a picture of him cavorting with Dallas Wittgenfeld;
Folks warn me that he’s very vindictive and that’s why there’s so little negative information out there about him. I know for a fact that he tried to spread lies about POW Network when they investigated Yocum. Luckily, I have just the right number of friends, so I don’t need to make more.
I’m not calling this stolen valor, because nothing he has said really rises to the level that you’ve come to expect from us here at TAH, but it is warning for folks to do their homework before they enter into business with Troy Yocum, who according to Guidestar, is the president of Active Heroes and his wife is Vice President of Programs.
This story is what influenced me to write about Yocum after sitting on all of this for years.
Category: Who knows
“But there’s also evidence that he is involved with unsavory elements – for example, here’s a picture of him cavorting with Dallas Wittgenfeld;”
Birds of a feather….
Shitbirds of a feather…
Someone once said “If you want to get rich, start your own religion”. Today I suspect you just start your own charity.
I got a question about the gold star family this shitbag escammed.
Why didn’t they use the SGLI to cover the funeral?
We all get 400,000 bucks if we get kill in active duty, plus 30,000 instant money to the family if we get killed while deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.
So, my question:
Why are the parents of this Soldier raising money to cover for funeral services?
I got it. This Troy dude is a shitbag and needs to be canned, but what is this thing about the funeral service?
I’m just confused.
Yeah, that jumped out at me also. Especially since I think the death benefit was raised from 30k to 100k a few years ago.
There should be zero reason for any gold star family to be raising money for a funeral, well besides having skippy list his favorite stripper from the dirtwood on all the paperwork. Which since we were told, like a thousand times, not to do that means someone must have done just that; if only to excuse the browbeating we all got.
Them at the rock pisses me off. My Grandfather mobilized out of Camp Atterbury for WWII and I retired out of their 70 some years later.
Smal world. I was stationed at Atterbury with G Co. 2-238 AVN (ATS). I left there for OIF II.
A little history here. Camp Atterbury was also a POW camp. That rock isn’t the original. The original was carved by an Italian POW. The original was moved to POW chapel after a drunk Soldier crashed into it and a replica was put into it’s place.
Sorry accidentally hit “report comment” when I meant to reply. I just wanted to add a bit more about Atterbury. I grew up 15 minutes from Camp A. The POWs there were treated very well. They were given medical,dental,and vision care. They were given proper nutrition. They had baseball teams,movies,woodworking shops and even a camp orchestra.
My Uncle,by contrast, was a POW in a German prison camp. To put it politely,he wasn’t given the same courtesies.
This contrast is why I always have and always will be proud to be an American.
There is an awesome Small Museum right across the road from the Main Gate. Normally open Tues & Thurs, some times you can squeak in on another day. So much Respect and Honor in well organized displays. Spent a few hours there last Month – worth a stop in.
Well, if he’s cavorting with Witless & Wandering, that’s good enough for me!
BINGO!!!
You are the company you keep.
I wouldn’t call this “stolen valor” but there are quite a few parallels to it. In both cases it involves devious individuals trying to co-opt the good nature of others for their own personal benefit. Since I ride a motorcycle I often find myself at motorcycle events and it seems like there’s always someone who is collecting money to “raise awareness” of either “veterans issues” or breast cancer or some other malady. Anything that is done to “raise awareness” automatically sets off my bullshit detector because it’s a very clever way of purporting to collect for “charity” without ever having to contribute anything to the alleged “victims” that one is supporting. When asked how much of the contributions actually go to the victims they can say “oh, I’m just doing this to ‘raise awareness'” – IOW I’m keeping the suckers money and using it to fund my personal vacation. Nice work if you can get it, I suppose (and if you don’t have a conscience.) My first question whenever someone says they want to “raise awareness” of, say, breast cancer, is to ask: Are there people out there who don’t know that breast cancer is a thing? Why do you need to “raise awareness” of something that is so widely known? At that point they usually hem and haw and tap dance about how they’re doing this as a “tribute” to their mother/sister/wife/fallen buddy, etc. And for veterans it really rubs me the wrong way because it plays right into the post-Vietnam stereotype of the “veteran-as-victim” which has always stuck in my craw. One of the most convincing (and devious) ways to lie is to make a factual statement and then let the listener draw an incorrect conclusion. For example, you’ll hear people say that “every day 22 veterans commit suicide” and the unstated lie is that the suicides had something to do with their military service, PTSD, or something that happened during ” the war” when in fact that is 100% nonsense. As has been shown many times, most of the “veterans” who commit suicide (to the extent that… Read more »
And that the majority of those vet suicides are vets over the age of 50.
Bingo. And elderly US males have a surprisingly high suicide rate regardless of veteran’s status, so even that can’t really be blamed on being a direct result of military service.
No shit…I get hit up every so often about sponsoring someone to walk to “raise awareness” about young male suicide….really hard for me to stitch together how my money and their walk do a damn thing to prevent young male suicide…anyway, I pass on the offers.
I have the same problem when I see someone flashing a “homeless vet” sign. Not to piss folks off but, if you did your time (awesome!) got out and 30 years after the fact you’re homeless, you’re homeless regardless if you are a vet. Being a vet has nothing to do with your homelessness, not like you just got out and found yourself on the streets (unless you were booted out and I can see why you’d be on the streets). If I ever find myself in that situation I’ll be flashing a “homeless” Jack in the Box employee” since I spent a couple years as a teenager working there.
“Back at Jack-in-the-box I could work the cash register! I could run the fryer! I could flip burgers! But now I can’t even get a job parking cars!”
“Luckily, I have just the right number of friends, so I don’t need to make more”
I love it Jonn…
BHWHAHAHAHA…….
LOL, Its not easy for Jonn to keep “Firends”. For a while a lot of Posers used the fact that they were on his “Friends” list on FB to make them appear more legit.
Its the highlight of my day when I get to send him a FOIA on someone and ask, “Is this guy Friends with benefits?”
In case people are not aware, Jonn has been life long friends with everyone on FB. It was created just so he could keep in touch with everyone…he is just that popular.
I have more friends (under 50) then I can talk to on FB
only recently have I been able to get back on the because of
The stupid dumb shit that people talk about
BHWHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!
Why do you only have friends under 50?
Do you hate old people or something?
https://youtu.be/HebKIM_C0rY
Beyond the right number of friends, Jonn’s quality of friends is exponentially higher than Troy Yokum’s.
“I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.”
― Franklin D. Roosevelt
Yokshit is a typical turd
To Damn Lazy to go out and do something meaningful
So instead he screws people for a living
The Karma Train is going to catchup with him sooner then
He realizes it…
the fact he was a 10 year PFC says a lot about his character
Can one of you Army types ‘splain something to this Navy type? In his FOIA form it says “Expert Badge w Grenade bar”
How do you score Expert with a grenade?
Uh, you throw it as far from you as possible?
When I went through basic in 78, there was a target similar to cornhole that you had to hit, and your grenade score was based on it. The funky part when I went through was that you had to throw them in a bizarre, uncomfortable (to me at least) manner – more of a shot put than a throw. I qualified, but I don’t think it was put on my DD214, and I didn’t really care either way!
To answer your question seriously, IIRC the grenade range has a number of stations and the rating (expert being the highest of 3) is based on how many stations the soldier successfully completes.
And I should point out that all of the qualification takes place with “practice” grenades, except for the one station where all a soldier has to do is throw 2 live grenades and not kill himself or his instructor.
I also recall that qualifying “expert” with a grenade is quite easy. In my basic training company I think we all qualified “expert” except for one or two. In fact, my “expert” grenade rate is the only weapons qualification on my first DD-214.
I had no idea there was qual’s still on Greande’s in the army
When I finished basic in early 2006 we were not authorized
At Ft Sill to wear the greande bling on our class A’s
At graduation
Well I went through basic at Fort Benning in 1980 and retired at the end of 2005 so I have no idea what they do now WRT grenade qualification.
Right now I’m sitting 500 meters away from our grenade qualification course. We had people on it last week.
At 35 meters, e-type siluette with a 5 meter circle around it.
Hit inside that from all 3 throw positions and you get expert.
Thanks for the info everyone. I just figured that qualifying expert on grenade meant that you managed to frag the target.
Or as the old saying goes, close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and nuclear explosions.
As far as that cross country hike goes, sounds to me like he let his alligator mouth overload his humming bird ass.
So this isn’t stolen valor. But it is stealing in the name of those of valor for the sake of personal gain. Beware of the one’s with their hands out. If they shake your hand, count your fingers.
As long as they’re not actually lying about what they do with the money it’s not stealing.
If they say “this is to raise money to go to homeless veterans” and then they pocket the money, that would be stealing, since they are obtaining the money under false pretenses by claiming that it will go to the homeless veterans.
But the weaselly language of “raising awareness” makes a theft or fraud charge hard to stick. After all, “raising awareness” can mean “supporting me and my family while I drive/ride/walk around the country talking about these issues.”
Is it weaselly? Sleazy? Yes, but from a legal standpoint, it’s not theft, and that is exactly the legal gray area that these dirtbags live in.
For anyone who hasn’t read the story that Jonn linked to in the last paragraph, please do so. Yocum sounds like a real piece of…work.
A real deal BLUE FALCON!
Wow, there’s a special place in hell for people who try to scam a Gold Star Mother. Fuck this dude, seriously.
I don’t have proof but I believe he scammed more than one GSM. :'(
That’s DRG level scumbaggery!
I posted the John Burk article on his page under one of his fundraising posts and it lasted maybe 30 minutes before being deleted.
Reminds me of Fat Man Walking from a decade or so ago – overweight USMC Vet walking across country just to lose weight. Rumors spread about whether he walked it all, his extended breaks, etc. He got some equipment donations from a couple sporting goods places for the publicity, but it wasn’t to fund a “foundation” or “raise” anyone’s “awareness”. It was to keep from dying from morbid obesity.
https://www.verywell.com/steve-vaught-the-fat-man-walking-3435952
He has an RE-3 code on his orders moving him from the ARNG to the IRR. That should tell you all that you need to know.
Yeah, that and 11 years service, rocketing up to the exalted rank of E-3 tell you what kind of shitbag he really is.
They must have given him a kick in the ass out, because he was a career PFC
He must have lost some rank because no one I’ve ever meet pulled off
Being a 11year PFC. I didn’t even think it was possible in the guard
Jonn, thanks for publicizing this moldy bowl of fucktard! John Burk of Stand2 (think I got it right this time) was live on Facebook awhile back, explaining what this fat weaselfuck was up to with his deal, and how he had screwed John over. I told John I’d try to spread the word. Here ya go, Troy, you corpulent-assed donkey fellator. Have some internet love!
Is it even possible to get a ICM and a GWOT-E on the same deployment???
Yes, if certain criteria are met. Essentially, the individual’s location AND his/her unit’s mission must both change and they must meet the “boots on ground” criteria for both awards – one before change of location, and one after.
Simply stopping in Kuwait for RSOI if your unit had orders for Iraq, however, wasn’t sufficient. See questions 4 and 8 under GWOTEM FAQs at
https://www.hrc.army.mil/content/Global%20War%20on%20Terrorism%20Expeditionary%20Medal%20GWOTEM%20and%20Global%20War%20on%20Terrorism%20Service%20Medal%20GWOTSM
(Edited to add: there were a couple of other ways someone could receive both the GWOTEM and ICM for a single tour as well. One could have been based in Kuwait, but performed regular air/ground missions into Iraq (e.g., transportation, medical, whatever) on the requisite number of consecutive (30) or nonconsecutive (60) days. Or one could have been engaged by the enemy or WIA during one such mission – in that case, the number of days criteria was waived. I’d have to double-check the reg to see if someone stationed in Kuwait who was injured while physically present in Iraq in an accident badly enough to require evac from theater qualified for both the ICM and GWOTEM – I think they did, but I’m not positive.
Active Heroes is a solid organization that has done some quality work for vets here in KY. The few times I’ve dealt with Troy he’s been pleasant, I’m not saying this post is untrue, I just hoping people don’t misjudge the organization.
Oh man.
Is this Troy Succkum’s suck puppet?
Let’s check his ISP trail…
Felcher.
I wonder if he knows this turd:
https://www.riverofchange.org/staff
This “Clinical” staff member has no clinical experience but runs a suicide hotline to HIS OWN CELL PHONE!
Troy’s brother by another mother!
Poser Ed.
This Troy Yocum fellow seems to be a real piece of…work. While technically not Stolen Valor, he misleads if not lies, deceives and distorts. But he is not the only one to do so in this story.
My heart certainly goes out to the mother, but she is not being completely honest either. She is not, by any stretch or definition, a Gold Star. Her son served honorably, combat tours and all, but he was out of the military for several years when he died tragically in a car accident. On spring break.
This answers why the Marines did not pay for the funeral, nor was there SGLI.
The story, in her own words-http://www.wingsofhopelivingforward.org/item_692/Brandon-Scott-Bowles-52083–31412.htm
Sad all around, but not a case of Stolen Valor, nor a case of a Gold Star Mother being scammed. This is a case of a veteran scamming the mother of a veteran, and it still sucks.
I wonder, does falsely claiming to be a gold star mother rise to the level of Stolen Valor?
Does that mean this is a case of scamming a scammer? Would that somehow accidentally be a net positive?
Was it Mrs. Peacock in the conservatory with the pipe wrench?
LIKE SAND THROUGH THE HOUR GLASS OF TIME; THESE ARE THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES.
I need more coffee.
Here. Try this…