U.S. Military Sgt. Angel S. Rampersad, 28, of Ozone Park was killed in motion on July 17 throughout an Iranian missile assault in Jordan.
Picture courtesy of the Division of Battle
Our navy is a totally volunteer drive. The individuals who select to put on the uniform, like Queens employees Sergeant Angel Rampersad of the U.S. Military, accomplish that as a result of they’ve an amazing want to serve their nation.
That want to place one’s life on the road in protection of their nation is rooted largely on love and patriotism. Too many Individuals have made the last word sacrifice as a result of they made that selfless, loving selection; Rampersad, sadly, counts amongst them.
She was killed final month whereas stationed in Jordan in an Iranian missile assault. It was a devastating loss for the Ozone Park neighborhood the place she lived and grew up and developed that selfless love of nation that introduced her into the navy.
Rampersad was not a local Queens resident; she was born in Trinidad and emigrated right here as a baby. By all accounts, she turned an lively member of the neighborhood she cherished, devoted to service and at all times placing their wants earlier than her personal.
At a current vigil, members of the family recalled how devoted Rampersad was and decided to affix the navy. She enlisted within the Military seven years in the past, shortly after turning 21. At her funeral on Friday, Basic Glenn Henke, commander of the tenth Military Air Missile Protection Command, recalled that each one of Rampersad’s “leaders talked about how she was exceptionally motivated.”
“Rampersad had the potential to go as far in the Army as she decided to go,” Henke mentioned. “Nothing was going to stand in her way.”
The late employees sergeant’s mom, Carol Acevedo, put it extra succinctly and poignantly: “My daughter was a real hero.”
And, as Gov. Kathy Hochul identified in the course of the service, Rampersad is only one of hundreds of immigrants in America at this time who’ve chosen a lifetime of service to the U.S. navy, demonstrating their love and patriotism of their adopted nation, “and are willing to shed blood for a country that they were not born in.”
It will be important for all of us to do not forget that in a time when we now have masked, armed ICE brokers detaining folks in immigration court docket hallways and on the streets of this metropolis. It will be important for all of us to do not forget that amid the belligerent anti-immigrant rhetoric from the White Home that focuses on what it says are “the worst of the worst” whereas ignoring the very best of the very best, like Angel Rampersad.
Sometime, the battle with Iran will finish. So too will the immigration crackdown. And sometime we hope that this nation of immigrants will rededicate itself to the selfless love and patriotism that she demonstrated, and be touched by what Abraham Lincoln referred to as in his first inaugural tackle “the better angels of our nature.”
