U.S. Army Major Zachariah Fike may be the most celebrated National Guard soldier in the country.
He’s the recipient of the Purple Heart and two Bronze Stars, as well as an accomplished entrepreneur and charity leader. His Milton-based nonprofit, Purple Hearts Reunited, returns lost medals to war heroes. In 2016, the Military Times made Fike the first-ever Guard officer to win its prestigious Soldier of the Year award.
This success has given Fike an air of invincibility among the Green Mountain Boys. One former soldier called him the Guard’s “golden boy.” Another said that “command treated him like a pop star.” Some more perniciously cast him as an entrenched member of the Guard’s informal, untouchable and often-retaliatory “good old boy” crowd.
Fike’s status — and the Guard’s commitment to reforming a “toxic” culture — is now being tested as the organization investigates him for alleged sexual misconduct. The exact nature of the inquiry is unclear, as is the extent of the allegations against Fike. But according to five Guard sources familiar with the investigation — including an alleged victim and two others who have been interviewed as part of the inquiry — officials appear to be probing a range of allegations of sexual impropriety dating back to at least 2014.
The allegations and the Guard’s response present a stress test of the organization’s accountability mechanisms, which leaders have pledged to improve in recent years following a slew of poorly handled cases involving sexual misconduct. In 2018, VTDigger published a seven-part series focused on misconduct in the Guard, detailing allegations of sexual assault, harassment and retaliation. The organization subsequently enacted a series of policy changes aimed at improving its response to misbehavior.
Fike’s attorney, Sean Timmons, denied that his client had engaged in conduct “worthy of disciplinary action” but confirmed that the Guard was investigating Fike. Timmons also said that, at the Guard’s request, civilian law enforcement officials had previously investigated an allegation of sexual assault leveled at Fike but had not brought charges.
In July, two days after VTDigger began reaching out to Guard members about Fike, the organization released a vague press release announcing that it had “initiated administrative investigations into allegations of misconduct in recent months.” Fike’s name was not mentioned in the press release and the Guard would not elaborate on it.
Citing the federal Privacy Act, the Guard also declined to comment to VTDigger in any specific way about the Fike investigation — or even to confirm its existence. However, Guard spokesperson Mikel Arcovitch confirmed that Maj. Travis Myers replaced Fike as commander of the Guard’s 172nd Cavalry Mountain Regiment on July 6. (Despite his diminished role, Fike remains in the Guard.)
Allegations against Fike have been known to Vermont lawmakers for more than half a year. In February, Senate President Pro Tempore Becca Balint, D-Windham, received an email outlining some of those allegations. The message described Fike as a “toxic leader and sexual predator in our ranks” and included a list of Guard members thought to have knowledge of the alleged behavior.
“We are afraid to come forward because we have seen it again and again,” the email’s anonymous author wrote. “Women who make waves in the (Vermont Guard) don’t get promoted and are subjugated to support roles.”
Neither Balint, nor other lawmakers who became aware of the allegations, took concrete action, citing their limited statutory powers.
In addition to the five people familiar with the Fike investigation, VTDigger also interviewed six other soldiers who’ve worked with Fike over the years. One said he had a reputation among the Guard’s female whisper network as a “creep,” echoing others.
“I was told ‘You need to be careful around this guy,’” she said. Another said Fike was a known womanizer “trying to see how many notches he could put on his bedpost.” A third said Fike could be aggressively flirtatious to the point of essentially propositioning women. “He often made inappropriate comments,” she said.
Most of those interviewed for this story requested anonymity for fear of professional retaliation — a well-founded concern, according to previous VTDigger reporting.
Despite Fike’s reputation among fellow soldiers, he moved up the ranks and secured plum deployments. As the Guard last year prepared for a year-long NATO deployment to Kosovo in the spring of 2021, he was set to serve as commander of the Maneuver Battalion. Shortly before the mission, Guard leadership, including Adjutant General Gregory Knight, received an anonymous message, later obtained by VTDigger, alleging a slew of detailed allegations against Fike up to and including sexual assault.
Nevertheless, the Guard sent Fike on the Kosovo mission in his pre-planned command role. There he faced additional accusations of mistreating women during the deployment, according to two sources. Shortly after the Kosovo mission ended, Guard leaders received another message from the same person who had bemoaned their lack of action ahead of the deployment. “THIS. WAS. PREVENTABLE,” the second message read. “Please help us.”
The Guard declined to comment on these messages or the organization’s response to them. Knight declined an interview request, citing an out-of-town trip to a Guard conference in Ohio. In a statement, he said it was “disappointing to see some of our members not doing the right thing, but this is a human endeavor and people sometimes make poor choices that need to be addressed.”
Fike did not respond to interview requests made on Facebook and through Timmons, his lawyer. In response to a series of detailed questions, Timmons provided VTDigger a lengthy statement rebutting all the charges against his client. “For the allegations that are still being investigated (for the 2nd or 3rd time), we are confident they will be dismissed without any findings against my client,” he wrote, further casting them as part of a “multiyear anonymous campaign of character assassination often by innuendo.”
Timmons blamed the Guard for investigating Fike, the media for reporting on him, and “jealous peers” for coming forward. “With our society so hyper focused on equality, I’m shocked the National Guard is so fixated on only one person when it takes two to tango,” he wrote.
Timmons also raised the possibility of Fike filing lawsuits or sexual harassment complaints against those who accused him of sexual misdeeds. “The tables are about to be turned on these anonymous defamers and the bright spotlight of honesty and accountability will disinfect the smear campaign just like Johnny Depp achieved in his recent legal win,” Timmons contended.
Fike’s rise
Fike’s family has been serving in the military since the Revolutionary War. His mother was one of the Army’s first female drill sergeants and his father served in Vietnam. Over his two-plus decades of service, Fike has shuffled between Guard units in New York, West Virginia and Vermont. He’s faced grueling combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus deployments to the Balkans, the Philippines and the Mexican border.
Fike was awarded two Bronze Stars, for heroism, and the Purple Heart, for injuries sustained in action. Specifically, he suffered cuts and burns, as well as hearing loss and a traumatic brain injury, from a rocket attack that hit Bagram Airfield on Sept. 11, 2010. He was there as a member of the Vermont Guard’s 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team.
As part of his recovery, Fike took an interest in military antiques. “I think any soldier who goes off to war changes as a person, whether they want to admit it or not,” he told the Military Times in 2016. “People deal with stresses, or whatever you want to call it, differently. Some find sports or find hobbies or go fishing or hunting. I had a good friend who got me into antique hunting. I enjoyed looking for that lost treasure, if you will.” In 2012, he founded Purple Hearts Reunited, which has since returned hundreds of medals and keepsakes back to their rightful owners.
The nonprofit’s work has been featured on the History Channel show “American Pickers” and has garnered Fike commendations from the American Red Cross and The Military Times. Ahead of the Washington D.C., ceremony to receive his Soldier of the Year Award award, Fike met with U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., and U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
Fike told the Military Times that he spent most waking hours outside of his full-time officer duties focused on his charity efforts. “I don’t sleep,” he said. Four Guard sources contend that, in fact, Fike often improperly conducted charity work on government time, sometimes even traveling out of state to pick up medals without taking leave — an allegation to which his attorney did not respond. (In a statement, Arcovitch broadly declared that Guard members are “restricted from engaging in private business enterprise during duty hours.”)
In addition to his charity work, Fike also became a brand ambassador for 14th Star, a buzzy St. Albans craft brewery founded by two friends and fellow Guard members, Steve Gagner and Matt Kehaya. In 2017, Fike joined Gagner and Kehaya to start a craft distillery called “Danger Close.” In a 2018 NPR story on the venture, Gagner explained that the trio’s military skills had perfectly prepared them to build the business. “The Army literally trained us to do this,” he said. “Maybe, maybe not the bourbon part … maybe a little bit.”
In his Vermont Guard career, Fike has served as a manager for the Guard’s recruiting and retention battalion. He also commanded the company responsible for Officer Candidate School in the state’s Regional Training Institute. Along the way, he became so chummy with leadership that some viewed him as a member of the “good old boys” network, or what one source described as the “hunting, drinking, shooting group.” As part of his favored status, one source said, Fike was not shy about browbeating senior officers when he needed something. “That’s not the Army I grew up in,” this source said. “We gave a certain degree of deference to senior leaders.”
This ad hoc network was detailed in VTDigger’s 2018 series and confirmed last year by an 18-month assessment undertaken by the National Guard’s Office of Complex Investigations (OCI). In a survey the office conducted as part of its inquiry, nearly 40% of Army Guard members expressed concerns about the “good old boys.” One respondent said these favored sons were “untouchable.” Another said their mistakes often resulted in “no punishment.”
Doris Sumner, a former equal employment manager in the Vermont National Guard, recalls Fike attending a gender diversity class that featured Jan Reynolds, an author and accomplished biathlete. “Fike was in there pouting about how a female commander wouldn’t give him time off as a dad,” she recalled. “He was upset about that and was claiming reverse discrimination.” Sumner found his perspective out-of-touch but said it ultimately spurred a good conversation “because it led all these women to talk about how many times they’ve been denied leave to take care of their kids.”
Investigative worries
Guard members appear split over the independence and integrity of the Fike investigation.
Some believe it will yield justice while others are worried the case will get swept under the rug. These more skeptical forces ticked off previous instances in which, in the words of one source, Guard leaders “hid perpetrators away for a couple years until their retirement.” VTDigger previously wrote about one such case involving a Guard chaplain accused of sexual misconduct. He was allegedly allowed to “ride off into the sunset even though command had the authority and ability to stop his separation and finish the investigation.” (Neither Fike’s lawyer nor the Guard commented on his retirement status.)
Last year’s Office of Complex Investigations assessment raised pressing concerns about the integrity of the Vermont Army Guard’s investigative processes. It noted that leaders have long leaned on command-directed investigations without also initiating equal opportunity complaints, which, quite critically, initiate oversight from the adjutant general and Guard leaders in Washington. “All my EO cases were informal,” recalled Sumner. “That way the Guard Bureau wouldn’t know.”
“I’ve made EO complaints against people and they haven’t gone anywhere,” said a former soldier. “There are people in the Guard right now who have had complaints against them and are now equal opportunity leaders.”
Though the precise scope of the Fike investigation is unclear, it includes a command-directed inquiry, according to those who spoke with VTDigger. Don Christensen, a former military prosecutor and current president of the nonprofit Protect Our Defenders, which works to end military sexual assault, called these sorts of investigations “worthless,” largely because they can be easily prejudiced and yield nonbinding recommendations. Sumner agreed. “Let’s say there’s a recommendation from an investigator to suspend someone,” explained Sumner. “The commander can do nothing.”
Two sources knowledgeable about the Fike investigation also worried that it was being slow-walked, echoing concerns articulated by the Office of Complex Investigations assessment, which noted that Army inquiries can drag on for months, or even years, leaving many survivors feeling “disheartened.” (In OCI survey data, one soldier said their unit failed to put a “flag” on a soldier — which prevents favorable actions, such as a promotion — until six months after filing an unrestricted sexual assault report.)
One source said that a series of early investigative steps in the Fike case that usually take a few weeks instead took months. “If the chain of command took this seriously, you expedite statements,” he said. “Why did it move so slow? That’s the million-dollar question to me.” Christensen said that any good military investigation must “move as expeditiously as possible” so as to obtain evidence before it gets stale.
“Once an investigation is underway, based on the amount of information and number of witnesses, they simply take time to complete,” Knight said in his statement. “I know that it is difficult for those waiting for an adjudication.”
‘We don’t have any real oversight powers’
Allegations against Fike first surfaced in a February email with an urgent subject line: “Request for media, state government intervention in the Vermont National Guard.”
The anonymous note, apparently written by a woman, was signed, “K-Forward SARC Team.” This cryptic signature suggests the warning could have come from a sexual assault response coordinator, or SARC, who served in the Guard’s deployment to Kosovo, which hosts a “forward-operating” U.S. military base.
The letter detailed allegations against Fike and a former Guard member and included contact information for a dozen current and former Guard members who “might provide information” about Fike’s alleged conduct.
The letter-writer bemoaned how little had changed since the Office of Complex Investigations “found appalling abuses and climate issues” within the Guard, writing, “not one thing was done or anyone was held accountable. Women poured their tears out to the investigators and absolutely nothing happened.”
If anything, the person wrote, the 2021 report had “made things worse. It basically confirmed to the leadership that their power was absolute and the women in the organization will continue to just have to shut up and take the abuse if they want to keep (their) jobs and get promoted.”
This reporter, who received the February email, repeatedly but unsuccessfully sought to contact its author. (VTDigger has since managed to corroborate many portions of the letter.) Who else was blind-copied on the email is unclear. The only name listed as a recipient on the version viewed by VTDigger is Balint, the state Senate president, who is now running for Vermont’s sole seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
In an interview, Balint’s chief of staff, Carolyn Wesley, said she had been unsure of how to handle the explosive message when it arrived. Two weeks after receiving it, she forwarded it to the state’s Office of Legislative Counsel asking what could be done. In an emailed response, the office explained that the Legislature had “fairly limited tools at its disposal to address something like this.” It further noted that an impending April hearing to review the Guard’s annual sexual misconduct report presented an opportunity to “address the issue publicly.” The message also made clear that Guard oversight resides with the executive branch and Gov. Phil Scott, who is the Guard’s commander-in-chief.
According to Wesley, Balint did not share the contents of the note with Scott. And according to Scott’s press secretary, Jason Maulucci, neither the governor nor any member of his staff received the note Balint did. He said the governor was “confident the Guard takes these type of issues more seriously than ever before.”
Balint did share the complaint with House Speaker Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, and Rep. Tom Stevens, D-Waterbury, who chairs the House Committee on General, Housing and Military Affairs, shortly before the April hearing. Stevens couldn’t recall if he brought up the allegation during that hearing. A VTDigger review of the videotaped forum showed no discussion of the matter.
Three months later, in July, after the Guard issued its vague press release about an investigation, Wesley shared an anonymized version of the complaint with Arcovitch, the Guard spokesperson, who responded, in part, “that is a lot to unpack.” After the Guard’s press release, Scott applauded the organization for its transparency in bringing the news, vague as it may be, forward.
In a recent statement, Arcovitch declined to say whether the Guard issued its press release in response to VTDigger’s scrutiny. “Maj. Gen. Knight is an active communicator,” he said. “We wanted to ensure our service members, stakeholders, and the public were aware that our leadership was taking on-going investigations seriously.”
Balint said in an interview that she now regrets not sharing the letter with Scott. “I do think that we did our level best with the information we had,” she said. “It’s very difficult to deal with anonymous complaints. It’s very difficult to pass that information along when you have very little to go on. But certainly it’s critically important that we are always looping in the commander-in-chief.”
In an interview, Stevens agreed that it’s difficult for state lawmakers to know what to do when faced with complaints. “We can’t operate as the human resources office of the National Guard,” he said. “We don’t have any real oversight powers.” He and Balint both said they worried about how distributing the letter widely could have created unwanted and unnecessary scrutiny for potential Guard witnesses and others knowledgeable about abuse allegations.
Despite Stevens’ concerns about the Guard’s accountability structures, he previously declined to support a House bill to create an independent oversight official. The initiative failed to pass out of Stevens’ committee, in large part because Knight cast it as redundant. Stevens said his own opposition came from the logistical and funding challenges of creating an independent office. “It’s very awkward to find a place for it,” he said.
Balint said she supports some form of independent oversight body, and pointed to Maine’s recently created permanent Advisory Council of Military Sexual Trauma as an idea to potentially replicate. She said she also wants to give statutory authority for the Legislature to recall an adjutant general — though she said she remains supportive of Knight — and believes there should be codified legislative rules governing how to handle such complaints in the future. Finally, she called upon the Vermont Attorney General’s Office and Human Rights Commission to “look into this ongoing concern in order to ensure the safety and well-being of all our Guard members.”
Sumner also views the allegations and investigation as further evidence that the Guard needs to be reformed through more outside oversight. “There are so many people in the military who have the right values, integrity, and show leadership,” Sumner said. “But permeated in there are the egomaniacs, the predators and the people blind to abuse.”
Reporter Jasper Craven can be reached at 802-274-0365 or jclarkcraven@gmail.com