How to identify a military fake in a blog, where to begin? This is the story of Cody Sutton of Talladega Alabama, who dropped into SOFREP as one “GySgt. Joseph Preston of 1st Recon Battalion” and tried to con and receive accolades from unsuspecting SOFREP followers. From here on out, I will be referring to Cody as the “Troll”.

Some highlights from Troll’s commenting history on SOFREP

  • I shoulda stayed tanker, I switched over to infantry and got my leg blown off on my 3rd deployment by an IED.
  • I live it through my eyes then, I’ve been diagnosed with PTSD. It really sucks.
  • See I can’t look at Afghanistan without all the horrors coming back like, seeing my teammates die in front of me, getting charred in the IED explosion and losing my leg.
  • I was gonna go for MARSOC after my third deployment ended but that IED ruined everything.
  • I lost my leg in 2011 and now I have a prosthetic leg. Recovery was fine for it but I’m suffering from severe brain trauma and 3rd degree burns on my left half of the body.
  • On my second deployment, we were driving in a HMMWV when we hit an IED. Surprisingly nobody was killed, we just all had shrapnel in our ass.
  • I remember was I was a 0321 when I had to do BDA this one time. My team was walking around the crater looking for bodies. Not one fucking insurgent body. We scanned the remaining houses and there was no pocket litter at all! Just a couple of goats wandering around.
  • My team got ambushed while doing a BDA, two of our guys were seriously injured from bullet wounds to the head. They lived but the brass should let us use fucking UAV’s!
  • My parents died in 9-11, I joined the Marine Corps to avenge them and I did so by killing 20+ insurgents, however I didn’t sign up for fucking BDA, that’s where I lost my leg!
  • Yes, they were working in one of the towers when the fucking sand monkeys flew into it. I was 16 at the time and had to live in a foster home.

Validating the story

As you can see from his comments above, he likes to run his mouth about what HE has done. 99 percent of all combat Veterans who have actually gone toe-to-toe with the enemy don’t boast about it. Many Vets have a certain level of respect for the enemy. So when Troll kept going on and on about how his parents died in 9/11, being a Recon Marine and being combat wounded by an IED, red flags went up everywhere. I needed to look into this guy and checkout his story. So I asked Troll to send me an email so we could have a private talk. The following is a transcript of our conversation along with my footnotes.

(Troll) Did you want me to shoot you an email Mr. Golembesky?

(Ski) Sorry Joe, I am a little confused here, what is your SOFREP.com handle? marlinslayer82? Do you know a Cody Sutton (the name associated to the email account)?

(Troll) This is not my account (email) this is my cousins; did you want to speak with me? You said it on your new SOFREP post.

(Ski) Are you marlinslayer82? Did you write > My parents died in 9-11, I joined the Marine Corps to avenge them and I did so by killing 20+ insurgents, however I didn’t sign up for fucking BDA, that’s where I lost my leg! (verifying account(s) information)