EX-BLOOD RUNS WITH A NEW 'GANG' TO HONOR SLAIN BEAU
by DAN KADISON
February 17, 2003 -- 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.
