What:

The U.S. Postal Service will host an official renaming ceremony which designates the Inwood Station Post Office building in the name of Corporal Juan Mariel Alcántara.  The ceremony pays tribute to the dedication and service he provided to the nation.

The bill, sponsored by New York Congressman Charles Rangel, passed the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously.  Corporal Juan Mariel Alcántara Post Office Building” was signed into law by the President.
The Washington Heights community is being asked to support Alcantara’s family, friends and Representative Charles Rangel and the Postal Service by attending this free ceremony.

MEDIA

Media is invited to report on this event prior and after the ceremony – which will be located in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan – and will have full access to film and interview speakers and agreeable guests.

When:

Saturday, August 8, 2015
11:00am  

Where:

Inwood Station Post Office
90 Vermilyea Avenue
New York, New York 10034

Directions to Inwood Post Office

Who:

• Fredelinda Pena, Sister of Fallen Soldier, Accompanied by the Mother Maria Alcantara Disla
• Father Ricardo Fajardo, (Benediction) Pastor, Catholic Church of the Holy Spirit
• Lorraine G. Castellano, District Manager, New York District, US Postal Service
• Congressman Charles B. Rangel, US House of Representatives
• Wanda Santos, Marketing Manager, New York District, US Postal Service
• Loree Sutton, Commissioner, Mayor's Office of Veteran's Affairs (MOVA)
• Assemblyman Guillermo Linares, New York State Assembly (First Dominican Elected in the US)
• Minister of State Miguel Mejia, Under Secretary of State for Regional Integration, Dominican Republic (Representing the President of the Dominican Republic)
• Minister of Defense, General Máximo Muñoz Delgado, Secretary of Defense of the Dominican Republic
• Army Command Sergeant Major Timothy A. Guden (Representing the Pentagon and the US Army)
• Family and Friends

Background:

During the ceremony, which will take placein front of the post office, an official commemorative plaque will be unveiled, and at a later date installed in a prominent location inside the lobby so that all who enter will know the building is designated, the Juan Alcántara Post Office Building. 
On an August day when some Iraqi’s homemade bomb exploded near him, Cpl. Juan Mariel Alcántara became an American. He never got to appreciate the honor.

A little-discussed detail is that some soldiers fighting in this war for the United States are not American citizens. Over all, about 21,000 noncitizens are serving in this country’s armed forces, the Defense Department says.   Until death claimed his life on Aug. 6, one of them was Corporal Alcántara of the United States Army.

He did not live long enough to acquire a richly textured biography. He was born in the Dominican Republic, reared in Washington Heights.  He was 22 when the bomb — an improvised explosive device, in military-speak — ended his life and the lives of three fellow soldiers from the Second Infantry Division while they searched a house in Baquba, north of Baghdad.

At 22, Corporal Alcántara was old enough to have talked about going to college and maybe becoming a New York police officer, old enough to have a fiancée, old enough to have fathered a baby girl he never saw, Jaylani, 6 weeks old when he was killed.

The Americanization of Juan Alcántara came at his family’s request. Representative Charles B. Rangel of Manhattan helped shepherd the application through the bureaucracy in a matter of days. Officially, the corporal was declared an American from the day he died.

Corporal Alcántara’s Iraq duty was supposed to have ended on June 28, a day before his daughter was born. But his tour was extended as part of the president’s troop “surge.”