Sergeant Angel S. Rampersad, 28, of Ozone Park in New York, was carried as Duty Status Whereabouts Unknown for four days after the 17 July attack on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan. On Tuesday 21 July the Pentagon updated his status to believed to be deceased1.
That is a presumptive finding, pending recovery and identification. It sits apart from the confirmed deaths of Private Isabella Gonzales, 19, and First Lieutenant Tyler James Feehan, 25, who were named the day before. Rampersad served with the 1st Battalion, 57th Air Defence Artillery Regiment, the unit that operates ground-based air defence at the base. The cumulative American death toll in this war now stands at 182.
Our briefing of 21 July put that figure at 17, following the Pentagon's count at the time. It is 18. Update #157 carried a correction on the same running number, which says the toll is moving faster than the confirmations rather than that the confirmations were wrong.
The unidentified remains CENTCOM recovered at Muwaffaq Salti on 19 July have still not been publicly tied to any named soldier. Rampersad was 28, and he served in the ground-based air defence that the missiles fired at Muwaffaq Salti were sent to get past.
