The US military confirmed that a third service member, Sgt. Angel S. Rampersad, 28, is believed dead after Iran fired missiles and drones at a US base in Jordan on July 17. Her death brings the total number of US service members who have died in the broader conflict to 18 since the war began. The Pentagon listed her status as "Duty Status-Whereabouts Unknown" and said she is "believed to be deceased," according to The Guardian.

Rampersad was from Ozone Park in Queens, New York. She served with a military unit based in Germany called the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, whose job is to defend against incoming missiles and aircraft. Two other soldiers from the same unit were also identified by the Pentagon on Monday, July 20: Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas, and 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii. All three were in Jordan as part of the US mission against the Islamic State group, according to a US Central Command statement.

Iran's attack on Friday, July 17, used a mix of ballistic missiles (powerful weapons that fly in a high arc and land with enormous force) and drones (unmanned aircraft that can be loaded with explosives). Right after the attack, the US military said two service members were killed and one was missing. The next day, troops found remains at the site that could not be immediately identified. A careful examination process eventually led them to identify Rampersad.

These deaths are the first US troop fatalities from direct Iranian fire since the war's early days. That matters because earlier American deaths in the conflict came from indirect fighting or separate incidents in the wider war zone, not from Iranian weapons hitting a US base head-on.

The Jordan attack is not the only recent US death tied to Iranian weapons in the region. Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton, a 30-year-old father from North Carolina, was killed in Iraq while his unit was trying to safely destroy an Iranian drone they had recovered. His death shows that Iranian weapons remain dangerous to US forces even when no active battle is taking place.

As of July 21, fighting between the United States and Iran had been going on for 10 days. Iran has said that US strikes in the three weeks before July 21 killed at least 50 people and wounded more than 500 others. Both the US and Iran have targeted civilian infrastructure (buildings and systems like power plants, roads, and water supplies that ordinary people rely on) during the conflict. International humanitarian law requires that military actions be proportionate — meaning the military gain must outweigh the harm to civilians. Both countries' targeting of civilian infrastructure raises questions about whether they are following that rule, though neither side has formally addressed the concern.

The reason it took time to identify Rampersad is both practical and procedural. The weapons used caused severe damage, and recovering remains took a full day after the strike. The Pentagon used careful language — "believed to be deceased" instead of "confirmed dead" — because forensic (scientific) verification was not yet finished when the announcement was made. This is a normal part of the process, and it can take days depending on the condition of the remains.

The fact that all three service members who died came from the same air defense unit matters for practical reasons. Units that specialize in shooting down incoming missiles are highly trained and not easy to replace. Losing several members of one unit can make it harder for the military to maintain its rotating teams that protect the region from missile threats — a job that is already demanding given the number of missiles and drones coming from Iran and its allies.

The wider picture is one of a conflict moving toward more fighting, not less. The war is now in its second week, and both sides have struck civilian infrastructure. The Jordan attack showed that Iran can break through US base defenses using waves of drones and missiles together. There is no ceasefire (a formal agreement to stop fighting) and no publicly known diplomatic channel between Washington and Tehran, which leaves very few paths for either side to step back.

The 18 US service member deaths since the war began have come in bursts, not a steady trickle. The Jordan strike alone killed three people in a single attack — the largest one-time loss for US forces in this conflict. Whether that loss changes how the Biden administration decides to use its military or whether to launch retaliatory strikes is the key question going forward.