US honours T&T-born staff sergeant killed in Jordan attack

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Trinidad and To­ba­go-born US Staff Sergeant An­gel Ram­per­sad, who was killed in Jor­dan last month, was laid to rest on Fri­day fol­low­ing a fu­ner­al at­tend­ed by New York Gov­er­nor Kathy Hochul, New York City May­or Zohran Mam­dani, US Brigadier Gen­er­al Glen Henke and oth­er dig­ni­taries.

Ac­cord­ing to US me­dia re­ports, Hochul or­dered state flags to be flown at half-staff in Ram­per­sad’s ho­n­our.

She praised the 28-year-old sol­dier for “liv­ing a life of courage and self­less­ness.”

“An­gel gave her best to Amer­i­ca. And Amer­i­ca is grate­ful,” Hochul said. Ram­per­sad was born in Trinidad and To­ba­go and moved to New York with her moth­er, Car­ol Aceve­do, when she was two years old. From a young age, she was de­ter­mined to serve her adopt­ed coun­try and en­list­ed in the US Army at the age of 21.

She served with the tenth Army Air and Mis­sile De­fense Com­mand in Hawaii, Ger­many and, most re­cent­ly, the Mid­dle East. A mil­i­tary com­mu­ni­ca­tions spe­cial­ist, Ram­per­sad earned sev­er­al ho­n­ours, in­clud­ing the Army Com­men­da­tion Medal.

She was killed in the Ju­ly 17 at­tack on Muwaf­faq Salti Air Base in Jor­dan and was posthu­mous­ly pro­mot­ed to staff sergeant.

Dur­ing Fri­day’s fu­ner­al pro­ces­sion, Ram­per­sad’s cas­ket, draped in the US flag, was car­ried by of­fi­cers of the New York Po­lice De­part­ment to Cal­vary As­sem­bly of God Church, lo­cat­ed near her fam­i­ly home in Ozone Park, Queens.

At a vig­il be­fore the fu­ner­al, Aceve­do de­scribed her daugh­ter as a ded­i­cat­ed sol­dier who loved her job.

“She fought for the US and died for it. I’m a moth­er who is high­ly proud of her,” Aceve­do said, ac­cord­ing to NPR.

Dur­ing the fu­ner­al, Hochul al­so told Aceve­do, “This is al­so a cel­e­bra­tion of you, be­cause you gave us the gift.”

In her eu­lo­gy, Ram­per­sad’s sis­ter, Lau­ra Tam­by, said her sis­ter had al­ways want­ed to stand for some­thing and serve oth­ers.

“And so she did,” Tam­by said.

Brigadier Gen­er­al Henke, who com­mand­ed Ram­per­sad while she was sta­tioned in Ger­many, de­scribed her as an ex­cep­tion­al sol­dier.

“Sol­diers like her don’t come around very of­ten. When they do, you fight to get them on your team and then you fight to keep them on your team.

“The lucky peo­ple who knew her have what she left with them: light, laugh­ter. The sol­diers who served with her will con­tin­ue to car­ry her for­ward with them,” Henke said.

Ram­per­sad was laid to rest at Long Is­land Na­tion­al Ceme­tery.