By Ryan Schwach<\/p>\n
A Queens congressmember blasted the Trump administration for removing Staff Sergeant Angel Sarah Rampersad, who was from Queens, and three others from the Iran war\u2019s official death toll. <\/p>\n
Congressmember Gregory Meeks told the Eagle on Monday he wants Rampersad and the three other troops put back on the war\u2019s death toll to honor their sacrifice. <\/p>\n
Last week, the Pentagon removed Rampersad, along with Lt. Tyler James Feehan and Pvt. Isabella Gonzales \u2013 who died in the same attack as Rampersad \u2013 and Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton, from the official count of Iran war casualties on their website. The change decreased the total number of U.S. service member deaths from 18 to 14. The federal government said the change was made because the four soldiers died when a ceasefire was in effect. They were instead classified with other casualties involved in \u201coverseas operations.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, there’s 18 people that served our country that died because of this war,\u201d Meeks, who also serves as the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Eagle. \u201cThere never was a stopping, a cessation, really, of fighting.\u201d <\/p>\n
Though a spokesperson for the Pentagon previously told the New York Times that the change was an “anomaly” on the agency\u2019s website, the DOW stood by the designation change this week. <\/p>\n
As of Tuesday afternoon the death count remained at 14. Rampersad\u2019s name was not listed. <\/p>\n
Meeks wants the names restored. <\/p>\n
\u201cThose individuals deserve it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were there for one reason \u2013 the president of the United States made a determination that he was going to start a war,\u201d the longtime legislator added. <\/p>\n
Rampersad, a 28-year-old Queens local who worked maintaining battlefield communications, was killed on July 17 when an Iranian missile struck the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan where she was stationed. <\/p>\n
Community remembers \u2018a hometown hero\u2019 <\/p>\n
Meeks\u2019 comments to the Eagle came at a vigil held for Ramprasad outside her family\u2019s Ozone Park home on Monday night. <\/p>\n
Dozens of locals came to honor Rampersad, who lived in Queens after immigrating to the United States from Trinidad as a child. She grew up in the South Queens community. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe was amazing,\u201d Rampersad\u2019s close friend, Jennifer Jones, told reporters on Monday night. <\/p>\n
Jones held a poster board filled with photos of Rampersad and written messages from friends Rampersad made at Forest Hills High School. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was so lucky to have experienced this lifetime with you,\u201d one message read. \u201cYou may be gone from this but your memory and love will never fade away.\u201d <\/p>\n
Rampersad was called a \u201chometown hero\u201d by community leaders and elected officials, who said Monday they want the street corner where she lived and a local school named after her. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe want Angel’s name to inspire future generations of children in the community she loved,\u201d said local civic leader Sam Esposito. \u201cShe loved life, she served her community, she prayed in her local churches, she served her country. She answered the call when she was called, and she was one of us.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ryan Schwach A Queens congressmember blasted the Trump administration for removing Staff Sergeant Angel Sarah Rampersad, who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309136,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-309135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}