Legacies of Service: Border Patrol Agent James Epling

 

As Shaine Casas stood poised above the pool at the summer Olympics in Paris, it seems like a variety of events led him to this moment: Years of training at the highest level, becoming a U.S. and world champion, the days of sacrifice by his mother, and the latest push to reach excellence that brought him to France for his first games. But maybe more than all the rest was one fatal moment more than 20 years earlier that led to him to this point. 

"It was destiny, for sure," Casas said. “It happened when I was so little and set the tone for the rest of my life.” 

The event, happening when he was a just a 4-year-old toddler, that launched his destined journey was the drowning of his father, Border Patrol Agent James Epling. He was lost in the line of duty in the Colorado River near Andrade, California, on Dec. 16, 2003.  

“Jimmy was sick that day; he had the flu,” said Monica Epling, his widow, recalling how he went in to work despite not feeling great, because his fellow agents needed help. “He heard over the radio that there was a lot of activity there by the river, and they were short-staffed because that was the night of the Christmas party. He went because there was a group of [migrants] in distress in the river.” 

Monica wished she would have tried to make him stay home, but she also knew that she couldn’t have kept him away anyway because lives were on the line. Later that night, she received the dreaded knock at the door where her husband’s friend, Border Patrol Agent Tom Ramsey, the sector chief and several other members of the Yuma station stood and gave her the news that her husband was missing. She barely heard what they were saying. 

“I was in a daze,” Monica said.  

Three days later James Epling’s body was found. She suddenly became a single mother with three boys and another one just six weeks from being born. But she was never alone.  

“There was a constant flow of agents there, and Jimmy’s classmates and friends were there, so I was never by myself unless I asked for time to be by myself,” Monica said. 

It was not long after the drowning of her husband and subsequent move to her home state of Texas that Monica Epling decided her sons needed to learn to swim. 

“After living for a few months in a new house in Texas, I decided to build a pool,” Monica said, determined that none of her sons would suffer the same fate as their father. “So, I put all of them in water safety.” 

She laughed as she remembered how Shaine went quickly from just using the little arm “floaties” that most little kids use in the baby pool to being the accomplished swimmer he is today. She said not long after he started learning how to swim, the instructors saw Shaine’s potential and encouraged her to put him on the swim team. She didn’t think he could swim with the older children, but he surprised her. 

“He was one of the youngest swimmers, but he was one of the best they had!” she said. “He moved up really quickly.” 

Monica’s other sons – Sean, nearly 10 when Epling drowned; Seth, only 2 when he lost his father; and Jimmy II, who was born a few weeks after the incident – all have gone on to accomplish much already. Jimmy and Seth are U.S. Marines, and Sean has a degree in geology. Seth agreed that the service to the country his dad had made an impact on him, although he only had other people’s memories of James Epling to help make that impression. 

“I was two when it happened,” said Seth, now a sergeant in the U.S. Marines who works as an intelligence specialist at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and only learning about who his father was from friends and family members. “They told me he was a great man, that he was very caring for my mother and brothers,” and others his father didn’t even know. “He went into the river to save people, even though they were here illegally, trying to save them. It proves what kind of a man he was.” 

Fond memories of Epling extend beyond his immediate family members. Ramsey was Epling’s classmate at the Border Patrol Academy in early 2003. The two eventually worked in Yuma, Arizona, together, with Epling being Ramsey’s roommate until Epling could get his family out there to Arizona. 

“He was all about family,” Ramsey said. Epling was always asking Ramsey – who had been married for at least 10 years when the two met – about how to have a successful marriage and be a good family man. “That was his focus: making the marriage and family life work.” 

Ramsey said Epling was an all-around good guy who lit up a room when he would walk in and would do anything for someone.  

“Jimmy was the kind of guy who would give you the shirt off his back,” he said. He still thinks about Epling to this day. “For me, it’s like it just happened yesterday.”   

Border Patrol Agent Tyler Emblem was – and still is – on the Border Patrol Search and Rescue team out of Yuma, who searched the icy cold waters of the Colorado River for James Epling on that dark December night in 2003. He remembered getting the call during the office Christmas party, hastily grabbing his gear and meeting up with other search and rescue team members. 

“I remember the water being very, very cold. We knew the search area, so we knew the terrain we would deal with,” Emblem said. “We hopped in the water and started calling his name.” 

The search continued for three days until Epling’s body was finally found.  

He added that not only was it an “all-hands on deck” situation for the small team of Border Patrol search and rescue personnel, but it seemed like the entire Yuma station was involved. And local law enforcement, U.S. Marines, Mexican border agents and even civilians bringing meals all pitched in the best they could. But Emblem said it’s not that surprising. 

“When you realize it’s someone else in uniform, the connectivity you have to your law enforcement brethren is unseen but very strong,” he said. “You don’t necessarily need to know that individual, but the motivation,” is strong when trying to save a fellow law enforcement officer’s life.  

“We spend ungodly amounts of hours looking for people we don’t know who we have never seen,” Emblem said. “But when it’s someone in uniform, it’s a whole different level. It’s one of your guys.” 

Emblem knew Epling – although admittedly not well – and that Epling wanted to be part of the search and rescue team in Yuma. 

“He was an athlete, and I have no doubt he would have been a great addition to the team,” he said, before pausing and reflecting that maybe, in a way, Epling actually is. “Maybe in an unseen way now.” 

In an ironic – or maybe befitting – twist, Greg Solis, Casas’s childhood friend who was on the same swim team with him when they were just kids, became a Border Patrol agent, which Casas just recently found out.  

“I was in fifth grade when I met him,” Solis said, noting that despite being three years older than Casas – a big age gap for little kids – Casas was the strongest swimmer even in this older age group. “It was the more elite level, and he was the youngest kid in our level.” 

Solis remembered the younger, high-energy Casas as wanting to hang out with the older guys even outside of swimming activities, as they traveled together to various swim meets. 

“I remember him being the younger, annoying kid. He was always bouncing around! He had a lot of energy,” laughed Solis. He also said it’s no surprise Casas was successful. “He started with a lot of the attributes to star at the highest level: He’s a big, big guy, he has the talent, and he has the work ethic.” 

And Solis’s “Silent Partner” – a fallen Border Patrol agent who serves as new agents’ angels on their shoulders during basic training and throughout their careers (see the previous Frontline article, “Silent Partners Echo the Past, Inspire the Future”) – is none other than Border Patrol Agent James Epling. 

“It was a rumor at the time [during the swim team days] that his dad had passed away as a Border Patrol agent in a drowning accident, and his mom wanted to make sure her kids were able to swim,” said Solis, who now works in the busy Laredo, Texas, area.   

When he got the Silent Partner card in Border Patrol basic training, Solis had no idea about the connection.  

“I was extremely motivated by [Epling’s] act of courage and his sacrifice,” he said. “At the academy, which is a hard journey, it’s very motivating to have a hero you want to follow.” 

In high school, Solis was a lifeguard. While he hasn’t done a water rescue as part of his work in Laredo, he said he has carried a migrant a couple of miles off some ranchland, saving the person when the migrant fell into distress. He hopes one day to join the Border Patrol’s Search and Rescue team himself, something James Epling once aspired to do.  

“I want to be a part of rescues; I want to follow [Epling’s example of selfless sacrifice], since it’s been so inspiring in my career,” Solis said.

Monica has her own legacy of service as the daughter of a Border Patrol agent who years ago was in charge of the Rio Grande Valley sector in McAllen, Texas, as well as doing her own stint in the U.S. Navy and now working for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Texas. She sees the legacy of James reflected in her sons’ service to the country, in all of its different ways. 

“I have no doubt that [that service] was from what they saw growing up,” she said, adding she has several other family members who have also served in the U.S. military and law enforcement. “I didn’t tell the boys, ‘You need to do this,’ or ‘You need to do that.’ I let them make their own choices. It’s in their blood.” 

Seth plans to follow in his father’s footsteps and join Border Patrol when his latest enlistment is up in a few years. Now, he often thinks about the man who he knew only briefly who served this country well. It’s a legacy Seth plans to carry forward. 

“I have pictures of him and our family in my room. I was just a baby in the pictures,” he said. “He’s always on my mind.” 

Seth also credited the strength of his mother for getting the family through. 

“She was always there for us, and she still is,” he said, pointing out how she would take all the boys to their various activities growing up and even took them to visit the gravesite where James Epling is buried.  

“She would let us talk to our dad,” which Seth said he still does today in his own thoughts and prayers.  

Besides the legacy Epling left in his sons, there’s a legacy that remains with the agents who served with him. 

“It gives you more resolve and purpose to do your job,” Emblem said, referring to Epling’s drowning. “Death is a real thing, and I think our job is to keep that at bay as long as possible for people,” adding this one still hits close to home for him, more than 20 years later.  

“None of the people who were there who wear the uniform will ever forget that,” Emblem said.  

And maybe, if there is something positive to take from the loss of an agent, there’s knowing other agents’ lives are saved today because of what was learned on that December 2003 day, on the banks of a cold Colorado River. 

“I know there’s Border Patrol agents who have been saved by the education that Border Patrol has provided in water safety courses,” Emblem said. “It was a wakeup call for a lot of us on the search and rescue team and heightened the importance of our job. His memory through his family is still very much alive. It’s still a living thing. It’s not simply a tombstone in the cemetery.” 

Ramsey echoed those sentiments. 

“There’s not a day that goes by – and I talk with my other classmates, and we message each other on Jimmy’s anniversary –,” that he doesn’t think about Epling and that fateful day, Ramsey said. “He’s definitely missed.” 

In Paris, Casas finished just outside of the group that would make the finals in the men’s 200-meter individual medley, ending his quest for a gold medal at the 2024 Olympics. But he vowed he’ll be in the pool again when the games come to Los Angeles in 2028. 

Casas said he used to never really think about how his father’s drowning led him down the path to serve the U.S. by becoming a world-class swimmer. But he now knows that destiny and Epling’s legacy carries on with him. 

“What happened to him and the absence of our father in childhood I guess kind of guided me to stay swimming,” Casas said. “It just always felt like there was something pushing me forward. I don’t think stuff happens like that for no reason and just by chance.”