A mother in Ozone Park, Queens, watched two men in military uniforms cross the street toward her neighbor's house and knew before the door even closed. Then she heard the screaming. Staff Sgt. Angel S. Rampersad, 28, born in Trinidad, raised in New York, killed July 17 in Jordan, came home in a flag-draped casket on Friday.
She Couldn't Wait to Sign Up
Rampersad tried to enlist at 18. Her mother wasn't ready to let her go, and the Army requires parental consent for minors. So she waited. According to NPR, her aunt Judy Rackal told a press conference last week that a few days after her 21st birthday, Rampersad made an appointment with a recruiter and signed herself up.
That's not a casual act. That's a person who has been planning something for three years and counting down the days. She knew what she wanted, and she went and got it the moment the law allowed her to.
She was assigned to the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command. She served in Hawaii. She served in Germany. Then she deployed to the Middle East, where she worked on military communications systems — a role a family friend and Army veteran named Deo Singh had steered her toward, NPR reports, because it was "kind of behind the line and it's safer." It wasn't safe enough.
What the Attack Actually Was
Rampersad was killed on July 17 in an attack on the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan. NPR reports she was one of four American soldiers killed overseas in the last month of the ongoing war between the United States and Iran.
Four soldiers in a month. That number deserves to sit on the page by itself for a second. Four families receiving a knock on the door. Four neighborhoods watching military uniforms walk up a front path.
Rampersad was posthumously promoted to staff sergeant. The U.S. Department of War confirmed she earned several commendations over her seven years of service, including the Army Commendation Medal. The military gave her a promotion she will never be able to use, because that is the thing militaries do, and it is somehow both a genuine honor and the saddest possible sentence.
Ozone Park Showed Up
The neighborhood where Rampersad grew up is one of the most diverse ZIP codes in the United States. When they held a candlelight vigil for her on July 27, neighbors came from Colombia, Morocco, and points in between. They lit candles. They sang. They prayed. An American flag flew at half-staff outside the family's two-story home on a tree-lined corner in Queens.
On Friday, first responders and community members lined the sidewalks to salute her casket as it passed on the way to Calvary Assembly of God Church, half a mile from where she grew up. According to NPR, those who eulogized her said she wouldn't have believed all the recognition she was receiving. That tracks. Rampersad was remembered as a drummer at her local church, a softball and bowling player, a calm presence in any crisis her family faced.
Queens Borough President Donovan Richards put it plainly at the funeral: "Angel Rampersad was not born in the United States of America, but Angel Rampersad was willing to die for the United States of America. That's how strongly she felt about America, not just the place, but the idea of what this country could be."
Her Mother's Last Words to a Crowd
Carol Acevedo brought her daughter to this country from Trinidad when Angel was two years old. She raised her in Ozone Park, watched her join the military against her initial wishes, and then buried her Friday in Queens.
At the vigil, Acevedo spoke with her voice wavering. "My daughter was a good soldier. She fought for this country and she died for this country, and I am a mother that is highly proud of her," NPR reports she said.
At the funeral itself, she kept it shorter. "Love your kids, hug them. I don't have mine to hug anymore," she told the crowd. "But to those who have, embrace them, cherish them and be there for them. They will need guidance." There is nothing to add to that. There is nothing funny or clever or analytically useful to place after those words. A mother said them at her daughter's funeral, and they should be allowed to stand.
The War That Has a Body Count
The United States is at war with Iran. That sentence still reads strangely to a lot of people, because the debate about whether and how this war started has consumed enormous amounts of political oxygen, and the human cost has sometimes gotten lost in the argument about whose fault it is.
Angel Rampersad is the human cost. She studied at Queensborough Community College, graduated from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, enlisted because she wanted to, and died at 28 in a communications role at an air base in Jordan that someone decided to attack. She was one of four Americans killed in the last month, per NPR. There will be more.
The war is not abstract in Ozone Park right now. It is not a talking point or a cable news chyron. It is a mother who no longer has a daughter to hug, and a neighborhood that lined the sidewalks to salute a casket passing by on a Friday morning.
The Dingo Take
You are supposed to believe that four soldiers killed in a month is a manageable number. That it is the cost of doing business. That the debate about Iran policy is the important thing to focus on, and the names can be addressed later, in a respectful segment, before we move on. Angel Rampersad spent three years waiting to be old enough to enlist without her mother's permission, then signed up the week she turned 21. She earned commendations. She worked in communications because a family friend told her it was safer. None of it was safe.
The Queens Borough President said she believed in the idea of what this country could be. That is a meaningful thing, and it is also a brutal thing, because the idea of what this country could be is not always the thing this country is. The same government that sent her to Jordan has spent the better part of a decade doing everything it can to make immigrants feel like they don't belong here. Rampersad came here at age two from Trinidad and died at 28 in the desert. The least we can do is say her name and mean it.
Carol Acevedo told a crowd at her daughter's funeral to hug their kids. That is the whole speech. That is the only thing left to say after a 28-year-old who wanted nothing more than to serve gets killed in a war that most Americans can't fully explain. Hug your kids. Pay attention to where this war is going. And remember that the people bearing the weight of it live in places like Ozone Park, Queens, not in the rooms where the decisions get made.
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