U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, Democrat for Texas’ District 34, plans to introduce a bill that will rename Brownsville’s main U.S. Post Office after a fallen soldier from Brownsville.
Gonzalez’s bill, which he will file soon, will request the post office on Los Ebanos Boulevard to be named the First Lieutenant Andres Zermeno Post Office.
Retired U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela, D-District 34, introduced a similar bill in March 2022 but because there was so much division between the Democratic and Republican parties, the bill failed to pass and the post office was not renamed, Gonzalez said on Thursday.
“We had some Republicans that wouldn’t sign on,” Gonzalez said. “That’s just how broken Congress was that we couldn’t even name a post office last year.”
Zermeno, 26, a Brownsville native, was killed in action Sept. 25, 2011, during combat operations in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in Shekhabad, Afghanistan.
“We hope that with the new Congress, there’s seem to be an attitude that they want to try to work with us and we hope that we can certainly come together to honor an American veteran who we lost in Afghanistan and deserves this honor,” Gonzalez said.
Zermeno was on patrol in Afghanistan when the vehicle he was riding in was struck by an IED or improvised explosive device. He died from injuries he sustained.
He was in his first tour of duty and had been in Afghanistan for about 11 months, his brother Father Joaquin Zermeno, a priest in the Catholic Diocese of Brownsville, said in a previous interview in 2011. He was expected to end his tour in about a month and then return home.
Andy, as the first lieutenant liked to be called, had been in active duty in the Army for three years. He also served in the National Guard.
Andy was the youngest of five children in the family.
Andy was among dozens and dozens of troops from the Rio Grande Valley who died in Operation Enduring Freedom following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.
Gonzalez said the bill filed by Vela in 2022, which he cosponsored died, a new bill must be filed when a new Congress takes over.
Although a bill such as naming a federal building after a fallen service member shouldn’t be that hard to pass, having a divisive Congress can hamper attempts. “In the divisive Congress we live in today everything is hard, even a post officer honoring a fallen veteran is more complicated than it should be,” Gonzalez said.
Zermeno was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star Medal, the Combat Action Badge, and a Non-Article 5 Medal by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
On Feb. 23, 2022, U.S. President John Biden signed a bill into law naming the U.S. postal facility located at 42 Main Street in Slatersville, Rhode Island, as the “Specialist Matthew R. Turcotte Post Office.”
Turcotte, of North Smithfield, was killed in August of 2017 during a live-ammunition training exercise at Fort Carson in Colorado while serving with the 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the 4th Infantry Division.
And on June 16, 2022, Biden signed another resolution designating the U.S. Post Office in Maroa, Illinois as the Jeremy L. Ridlen Post Office.
Ridlen, an Illinois Army National Guard specialist died from small-arms fire May 23, 2004, after a dump truck on the side of the road was detonated as his military convoy passed in East Fallujah, Iraq, the Illinois National Guard Public Affairs reported.
Earlier this month, Republican Congresswoman Monica De La Cruz of Texas’ District 15, filed a bill to get the U.S. Post Office in McAllen named after Border Patrol agent Raul H. Gonzalez Jr., who was killed in the line of duty in December 2022.
Gonzalez died on Dec. 7 when he crashed into a steel gate with his ATV around 1 a.m. that night while tracking a group of people who authorities believe had cross the border illegally.
At a Jan. 20 press conference announcing her bill, De La Cruz said in part ““This community loves and supports our Border Patrol and Customs agents and so, I have put together bipartisan legislation to rename this building in his honor.”
Rep. Gonzalez said he and other Democrats have joined De La Cruz in backing this bill.
“We don’t agree on a whole lot, but I think we should honor our fallen veterans and people who have served our community such as Border Patrol agents, military and law enforcement,” the Congressman said. “I think those are issues that we shouldn’t disagree on based on party lines.”
Rep. Gonzalez said once the bill is written, it goes to the floor for a vote, and if it gets a majority vote it the U.S. House of Representatives it passes.
“We hope that we can get everybody together in the next 30 to 60 days…we won’t know until we start working the numbers,” Rep. Gonzalez said.
“This is for a Brownsville native who lost his life fighting for our freedom in Afghanistan and I cannot imagine anyone who deserves it more. He left behind a young family, and I think that they deserve to be honored as well, and we are going to work as hard as we can to pass this,” Rep. Gonzalez said.
