She Loved Horses

John A. Burns

It was about 7:30 in the morning and the sound of soldiers singing and doing their morning exercises resounded through Fort Carson, the Army base nestled at the foot of Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs. Though it had not snowed in town yet, snow could always be seen up on Pike's Peak far off in the distance. The gentle breeze seemed to carry the cool refreshing air down from the snow-covered peak. If it had not been a work day, it would certainly have been a day for fishing or rappelling in the nearby mountains. I worked at the Fort Carson CID (Criminal Investigation Division) office and looked forward to spending my day writing reports and reviewing case files. Little did I know I was about to get to know someone that day. Someone I had never met before and sadly, never would.

Her name was Angela Jepsen, a twenty-six year old sergeant and veteran of the Gulf War. She had not come out of her room when called for PT (Physical Training) that morning. One of her friends went to her room to get her, but got no response when she knocked on the door. When she tried to open it, she had to force it open as if something was blocking it. When she stuck her head in the door, she saw that Jepsen had hung herself from a vent above the door using an electrical cord she cut from her desk lamp. She immediately ran down the hallway to call the military police.

Jepsen's room was filled with pictures of her and her horses. We found her lying on the floor next to her bed. Her unit commander had already taken her down in hopes of resuscitating her. We began going through her room looking for clues as to why she had taken her own life. As we went through her personal effects and interviewed her friends and co-workers, the reasons for the tragedy soon became apparent.

The main cause, we determined, resulted from something that happened to her while she was stationed in Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm. She and a male U.S. soldier were fraternizing with some Saudi Arabian soldiers, drinking with them. U.S. soldiers were forbidden to fraternize with Saudi Arabian personnel while stationed in Saudi Arabia. Her male friend left her alone with the Saudi Arabian soldiers, and they sexually assaulted her. She was never able to tell anyone of the incident for fear of getting herself and her friend in trouble. Sharing the secret with only her closest friends, she had been keeping this tragic event in her life to herself ever since. While this event alone did not bring her to kill herself, it was the main cause.

A contributing factor was the fact she had to keep it to herself for fear of getting in trouble. For so long, she had to live with the memory of what happened to her. She could not see her assailants brought to justice for what they had done. Even if she had told, the defendants would not have been tried within the Saudi Arabian justice system because they do not hold women in very high regard there, especially women like Sergeant Jepsen. The Saudi Arabian military could not fathom a female serving in their military in the same capacity she served in the U.S. military: as a sergeant, supervising male soldiers. Knowing this, coupled with the fact she should not have been around the Saudi Arabians in the first place, kept Sergeant Jepsen from revealing her terrible secret and beginning down the road to recovery.

The night before she hung herself, she had been drinking a great deal. This gave her the courage to do what she otherwise would not have done. A soldier staying in a room down the hall said she had been to his door the night before wanting to talk. He said he had been sleeping and did not want to talk to her. He went back to bed. There were drops of blood in the hallway leading to his door, and when we checked her wrists, we found hesitation marks. Apparently, she had contemplated slicing her wrists before going to his door, but she could not bring herself to go through with it. By the time she decided to hang herself, the large amount of alcohol she consumed had given her the extra comfort she needed to complete her task.

As I kneeled over her, my eyes went back and forth between her partially open eyes and the pictures of her and her horses which decorated her room. I knew she must have been her happiest when she was riding her horses. I imagined her in life, and what might have been if I had known her. Would she have told me her secret? Would I have been able to make a difference in her life, giving her a lifeline during this most traumatic time in her life? I would like to think I would have made a difference and she would be alive today. For the moment, I did the only thing anyone could have done for her at the time. I said a prayer for her and her family.

All these factors came together to end Sergeant Jepsen's life. Her suicide was the result of a traumatic event in her life that was never resolved. Keeping it to herself for so long, coupled with the alcohol consumption and constant memory of the event, led her to end her own life. I sometimes wonder who the Saudi Arabian soldiers are and where they are today. They probably remember the drunken party during Desert Storm where they all got lucky. I remember the beautiful face of a woman murdered by people whose country she helped defend; a casualty of the Gulf War the world will never know, and I will never forget.