Luke Yepsen remembered at memorial Mass

HILLSBOROUGH -- When a young soldier dies, some people turn to politics. Sheila Yepsen would rather remember that her son, Marine Lance Cpl. Luke Carney Yepsen, died doing what he believed was right.

"I know people have politics and all that," she said. "I loved my kid. Who wouldn't support their kid? You just love them and pray for the best, and when they don't come home, you have a lot of questions. You turn to those who love you."

Yepsen, 20, died in combat Dec. 14 in Al Anbar province, Iraq. A resident of Hillsborough until 1999 when he moved to Texas, Yepsen joined the Marines in 2004. A memorial Mass was celebrated at St. Joseph's Church in Millstone Tuesday night, drawing about 75 people.

The Rev. Msgr. Raymond L. Cole, the celebrant of the Mass, asked the congregation to seek forgiveness "for all the times when we have not been peacemakers."

In his homily, Cole eulogized Yepsen, remembering his blue-green eyes that were as clear as water.

"When he looked at you, he was looking into your soul, and it was an invitation to look into his," Cole said, recalling the boy's unusual maturity. "God has a plan for all of us, and God knew that at 20 years old, Luke would have lived a full life."

Yepsen was an avid traveler who loved talking to strangers, his mother said.

"He said he wanted to go to a different country for every year of his life, and he did it!" she said. "Actually, he beat himself -- he was already up to 21."

In addition to his home country, Luke visited Ireland, England, Germany, Thailand, China, Japan, Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Colombia, Canada, Kuwait, Iraq, France, Malaysia, Singapore, Mexico, Scotland, Belgium and Italy, his mother said.

When he was 10, the family went to Australia together. Kyle and his parents took seats at the front of the bus, but their younger son was already sneaking toward the back to talk to the other passengers.

"He said to us,'Pretend you don't know me, guys!' " his mother said. "He just loved to meet people, and he felt he could get better conversation if we weren't around."

Luke Yepsen and his brother, Kyle, now 24, grew up in Hillsborough, and attended Immaculate Conception Elementary School in Somerville, their mother said.

"We moved here because it's the best place in Jersey -- it's the people," she said. "We looked all over and just found this place to be spectacular."

Kyle was "a huge baseball fan," but the boys played soccer and basketball, too. "We loved all kinds of sports," she said. "We're a huge sports family. The kids were constantly outside."

When they played pick-up games in the cul-de-sac outside their house on Grafton Court, everyone was included -- not just the strongest or the fastest or the oldest, but any kid who wanted to play, Sheila Yepsen said.

When it was time to move to Texas in 1999, the boys cried about missing their favorite bike paths, the nearby pond and all their friends, their mother said.

When they got to Texas, Luke Yepsen attended Kingwood High School, graduating in 2004. Before he left, he discussed the war with the priests there, to sort out his feelings about the things soldiers do to keep their country safe. He began college, studying engineering at Texas A&M University, but he was drawn to the Marines, and started getting up at 6 a.m. every morning to go running with them, Sheila Yepsen said.

"He felt like he just couldn't get his head in the books, and was wasting time over there (in college)," she said. "He was very disturbed about 9/11. He begged to join the Marines."

They reminded him of the fairness he always had sought on the playing field as a child, his mother said.

"Luke really was very passionate about someone being picked on," she said. "He liked the fact that he was with a group that did not tolerate that kind of injustice. He liked the idea of the 'All for one, one for all, never leave a man behind,' the solidarity, and that everyone makes a difference, no matter what level they are."

The Yepsens told their son to wait, to stay at school for another semester, but he just couldn't wait to enlist, Sheila Yepsen said. Before the year was over, they attended his swearing-in ceremony.

He wanted to join special forces, and could have made the cut easily, but he just didn't feel right about moving up the ranks before he spent one tour of duty in Iraq as an infantryman. He just wanted to be one of the guys, his mother said.

After basic training, Luke Yepsen came home for a month for Christmas and met Sandra Brumen at a party at the home of a close mutual friend. At the end of their time together, she went to college near their home, and he went to a California desert to prepare for the heavy labor, extreme heat and violent strangers he would encounter overseas. When he died, they were engaged.

Now, Sheila Yepsen spends a lot of time talking to the daughter that was almost hers.

"We are very close, and I'm sure we will stay close," Sheila Yepsen said. "My son loved her more than anything, and I was very happy that he had found someone to share his life with."

In the field, Luke Yepsen saw his fellow soldiers fray at the seams -- one had anxiety so bad, it caused him to chew the ends off two sets of gloves -- but the Catholic faith was what saw him through the hard times, his mother said.

"The guys that have no faith are not doing very well here," Luke Yepsen told his mother a few weeks before he died. "The guys with faith are not afraid, and Mom, I am not afraid."

As opportunities to talk became more and more scarce, Luke Yepsen began to talk increasingly about his prayer life, and how much the prayers of his loved ones meant to him, his mother said.

"Right before he died, he called and said, 'Mom, listen to me very, very carefully -- tell everybody thank you for the prayers. They need to know that their prayers are working, that I know I am being taken care of, that I feel the presence of God. I just know that I'm going to be okay, Mom. I'm okay.' Four days later, he was dead."

The JAG report will be released in the next two months to explain exactly how he died, but his mother already knows something about what happened: her son and three other soldiers were riding in a Humvee, and Luke and another man were taking turns with the gun.

"You have to be very strong, because the gun is very heavy," she said. "You have to be an expert marksman, and he was."

Another sharpshooter was there too, but the Yepsens still don't know the name of the person who killed their son.

"According to Luke's friends, there are a lot of people over there just wanting to make things miserable for us," his mother said.

It was her son's compassion and maturity that compelled him to make the choices he did, she said.

"He did not want to go in as an officer," Sheila Yepsen said. "He did not want to be the one telling other guys what to do. He knew what that meant, so I had to let it go. He'd already found his niche, a good six months before he enlisted. He knew what he wanted. My son was a wonderful Christian young man that was passionate about our freedom, and we're all going to miss him."

In addition to his mother, brother and fiancee, Luke Yepsen is survived by his father, Gary; paternal grandparents; maternal grandmother; numerous aunts, uncles and cousins, all from Houston, Texas. His funeral Mass was held there, followed by his burial at the National Cemetery.

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