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His widow said the 25-year-old soldier from Yelm unsuccessfully tried to kill himself three times this year. On the last attempt, he held a gun to his head in front of his wife.
“He had this look of desperation in his eyes,” Ashley Joppa-Hagemann, 25, remembered, “It was as if he was asking me, ‘Please, let me go.’”
Her husband was found dead from a gunshot wound to the head June 28 on Lewis-McChord training grounds. Joppa-Hagemann insists it was a suicide, but the Army won’t yet disclose the cause of death.
She’s frustrated with her husband’s unit, the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, and convinced Army leaders are trying to brush over his death. He hasn’t yet received the on-base memorial she believes he deserves.
“Clearly, it’s the Rangers’ fault, the command’s fault, that my husband chose to free himself of the pain of being a Ranger,” Joppa-Hagemann said.
Maj. Brian DeSantis, a spokesman for Hagemann’s regiment, said the Army’s Criminal Investigative Division is reviewing the death. It’s looking at Hagemann’s command, his medical records and his service history.
Hagemann has not been recognized with a memorial at his battalion headquarters at Lewis-McChord, but Rangers participated in his funeral last month in California. They served as pallbearers and as his honor guard, DeSantis said.
“To say that he was not honored by 2-75, I don’t know that that’s accurate,” DeSantis said. “They paid their full respects to Ashley and the family.”
Hagemann could receive further recognition from the battalion when his fellow Rangers return from their current deployment in Afghanistan, DeSantis said.
“We will continue in any way that we can to support Ashley and Sgt. Hagemann’s children throughout this very difficult time,” he said.
Hagemann left behind two children, Noah and Parker. His death is one of 11 that are under investigation at Lewis-McChord this year. The Army won’t call them potential suicides, but base officials told Washington Sen. Patty Murray that nine soldiers had taken their lives there this year.
A News Tribune special report in June documented how suicides involving local soldiers have persisted, even as Lewis-McChord has developed one of the largest behavioral health staffs among Army hospitals and has been at the front of the Defense Department’s efforts to address post-traumatic stress among combat veterans.
Hagemann’s battalion has a reputation as a unit for hard-charging soldiers who serve overseas repeatedly. They deploy roughly every six months, usually serving on intense, four-month missions.
The 2nd Battalion’s alumni include Pat Tillman, the former NFL safety who was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in 2004, and recent Medal of Honor recipient Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Petry.
Hagemann joined the Army in November 2004 after graduating from Ripon High School in California’s San Joaquin Valley. “He always dreamed of being in the military,” his family wrote in his obituary.
Hagemann volunteered to become a Ranger as soon as he finished his basic training. He deployed with the elite battalion six times, DeSantis said, though Joppa-Hagemann said her husband fought overseas eight times.
He started to show strains after returning from a deployment in 2009. His widow said he’d drink too much to forget what he saw.
He was committed to the mental health ward at Madigan Army Medical Center for at least three days that year, she said. When he came out, he wanted to resign from the Rangers.
Joppa-Hagemann said other Rangers talked him into staying and then pressured him into dropping his counseling because they said it interfered with his job.
DeSantis would not disclose information about Hagemann’s medical history Wednesday, but said those records were important to the death investigation.
“It’s very relevant in this case, and it is being reviewed very closely,” he said.
Hagemann’s mother, Janae Hagemann of Ripon, declined to comment Wednesday. “It’s too fresh,” she said.
“He loved the Rangers,” she added.
Joppa-Hagemann in recent weeks has been speaking at public events to draw attention to military suicides and the loss in her family. She says she won’t stop until her husband gets the recognition he earned.
“The worst part is I love him so much,” she said at a Tacoma event Tuesday night hosted by the advocacy group G.I. Voice. “That’s what keeps me going.”
Adam Ashton: 253-597-8646 adam.ashton@thenewstribune.com blog.thenewstribune.com/military
