When Gillian Sirles came to the Remount Foundation nine years ago, she had survived multiple suicide attempts.

Sitting on a picnic table outside the horse stables at the Air Force Academy, Sirles recounts her story of survival.

Decades earlier, the Navy welder was discharged for alcohol use, an attempt to push down past trauma. In the years following, she struggled with drug addiction and alcoholism, eventually turning to sex work for money.

“I lost my family, I lost my job, I lost everything because of it, and I ended up homeless,” Sirles said, remembering how she would rummage through trash cans on South Nevada Avenue in search of food. “I had wanted to give up a lot. I cut my wrist. I tried every type of suicide there could be, and just, it never took.”

In 1993, Sirles was gang raped in Denver and left for dead in a dumpster, her throat cut three times. Airlifted to Aurora Regional Hospital after being found by a little girl, she was placed into a coma for two months. Doctors said she would never walk again. “Watch me,” she thought. Soon enough, she was walking and talking again.

But, after being released from the hospital, she returned to the streets.

“I hadn’t dealt with anything,” she said. She eventually signed up to go to Pikes Peak Community College, though, which kept her busy. “I was still doing drugs, drinking, but I was passing my classes, and after three years, I finally got a degree.”

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She got an apartment. Her relapses got further and further apart. The VA gave her 100% disability. But she was still struggling. So, she looked into therapeutic riding centers, interested in horses because her sister had one, she joked.

“I went to three other therapeutic riding places, and they all said, ‘We don’t have a horse big enough for you,’” Sirles said. So, in a last-ditch effort, she called the Remount Foundation, asking if it had a horse that could accommodate her.

“She started laughing. She said, ‘Be here at 9 o’clock.’ The next morning I was here, I stopped at that stop sign and just started crying my eyes out,” Sirles said, pointing to the stop sign behind the stables. “That was the first sense of relief that I’ve had in so long.”

That day, she was assigned to Mackenzie, a towering brown mare standing at the fence directly across from us.

Almost a decade later, Sirles is a peer mentor with Remount, helping other veterans find healing with horse-assisted therapy. On Wednesday mornings like this one, the Remount Foundation hosts groups from the VA Center. Today, it’s survivors of sexual trauma. Next week, it’ll be a grief group.

The Remount Foundation is a Colorado Springs nonprofit that uses equine therapy to help veterans, active-duty personnel and military families. The organization rents out the Air Force Academy Equestrian Center for its weekly peer support group meetings, where veterans can socialize with each other and work with the dozens of horses at the stables.

“At the end, you’ll hear this: ‘I’m so glad I came, it’s been a rough week.’ You know, ‘I’m much calmer.’ ‘I was afraid to be here, and it was just great to be with others,’” said Jeanne Springer, co-founder and program director of the Remount Foundation.

Springer founded the nonprofit in 2009 alongside Billy Jack Barrett, a Vietnam-era Army veteran. The two had worked together at the Academy Equestrian Center prior to creating the organization, inspired by the impact they saw among service members who worked with the horses.

Since its start, the program has worked with 16,000 veterans — and is on track to serve 4,000 more this year. Remount helps service members and their families who have experienced physical or emotional trauma, including PTSD, and children with special needs.

The services are free to use, with the organization relying on grants, donations and the passion of volunteers to keep running.

Roughly half of the veterans who join the program enter with suicidal ideations, Springer said. For many, like Sirles, this is a lifesaving treatment.

At each meeting, there’s a VA counselor present. The counselors help participants navigate their emotions as they work with four-legged friends.

For some, like board of directors member Scott Sweedler, that peer-to-peer connection is key.

An Army veteran, Sweedler suffered a traumatic brain injury that resulted in neurological complications and seizures. After surgery in 2019, Sweedler and his wife, who’s his full-time caregiver, moved to the Springs.

It was Sweedler’s wife who first learned about Remount through the VA Center. The pair used to ride at the Air Force Academy when stationed here earlier in his career, so they were familiar with the stables. So, upon the insistence of his wife, Sweedler stopped by.

“I really didn’t want to participate, because I was self-isolating,” Sweedler remembered. He felt self-conscious about his abilities. “I really didn’t want to be physically in front of other people. I didn’t want them to see what I was going through.”

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As he ventured into the program for the first time, he started to feel more comfortable seeing other vets.

“It brings a level of understanding and trust,” he said. “I realized, hey, we’re all just trying to get through what we’ve got in front of us, and that camaraderie and that ability to feel like (I) was in a familiar place with folks who understood my situation really made a big difference for me.”

He also noticed that interacting with the horses impacted his health, from improving his emotional regulation to reducing his seizures.

“The horses would almost seemingly pick me out, especially when I was having a seizure, and literally just bring their bodies up against mine. One would lift my hat off my head and nuzzle and lick the scar where I had brain surgery,” he recalled.

For others, the horses provide a special comfort. One survivor, who asked not to be named, stopped by for the first time seven years ago.

Her youngest son had just died, and visiting as part of the veteran’s grief group, she wasn’t sure what to expect. That was until she came face to face with Cinnamon, a light brown mare. As we talk, she’s brushing out Cinnamon’s fluffy winter coat.

One day, she remembers coming in and not feeling up to anything. So, she sat down on the stone ledge out in the field. Cinnamon approached her and gently rested her head on the woman’s shoulders. That was exactly what she needed, the veteran said. For about two years now, she’s been volunteering with the program as a peer mentor.

“The horses are so kind and gentle. They can know when you’re going through something,” she said.

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“We can learn from animals. There’s so many of us who isolate from life experiences, but we’re really meant to be in a community, and they kind of teach you how to do that again.”

As for Sirles, after working with Mackenzie for a year, she decided to take a walk through the geldings’ stables.

There, three stalls in, she found Frankie, a spotted horse with deep blue eyes.

“Our eyes met, and he just filled my empty soul. I quit drinking, I quit drinking. I haven’t touched a drop or smoked any crack since,” she said, proudly showing me a picture of him lying down. He’s the screensaver on her phone.

That was seven-and-a-half years ago. Since meeting Frankie, Sirles has come to the stables nearly every day to care for him and ride the thousand acres of trails.

“I came in on 16 different medications. Now I’m down to two, and one’s my horse,” Sirles, who eventually adopted Frankie, said. “Life can be good again.”