Two years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and for the first time in its 229-year existence as an independent nation, America is fighting a war with a military machine that is dependent on women.
The women span a universe of backgrounds. There are women like Ranbir Kaur, a 19-year-old part-time college student from the obscure San Joaquin Valley town of Earlimart. By summer’s end, Kaur expects to trade her textbooks for an M-16 rifle and head for Iraq.
What were Kaur’s motivations for joining the Army? No surprise here. She joins for the same reason that many Americans (men or women) join up. A possible ticket out of a small town and to a better life:
It was the limits of life in a comatose San Joaquin Valley farm town that spurred Ranbir Kaur to join the California National Guard in late 2002, two days after her 17th birthday and more than a year before she graduated from Delano High. That, and the $3,000 bonus for enlisting.
The daughter of Sikh grape farmers, Kaur emigrated at age 7 from India to the Bay Area, then moved to Earlimart, a dusty burg of 6,600, about 40 miles from Bakersfield, 70 miles from Fresno and light-years from the kind of things that would interest most teenagers.
The only restaurants in town are a mom-and-pop burger joint and a Mexican bakery that sells tortas and burritos. The high school is in Delano, eight miles away. There is no movie theater, no bowling alley, no nightspot.
The article profiles several other women as well. Still no women NAVY SEALS though. :)
To view more pictures of Kaur you can click on the slide show.
