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.
Wow. I have decided to stop my courses in Journalism and go straight into the millitary. That is a very beautiful woman.
Great moments in journalism (from slide #6):
“Ranbir Kaur, 19, uses her foot to close the door of her car after shopping for her mother on her return to Earlimart from her college classes in Bakersfield. Behind her are her family’s grape fields.”
What every person wonders about women who go to war: Can they shut a car-door with their foot?
(Other than that, it’s a good presentation)
How on earth did grape farmers get to emigrate to USA in 1993?
Good luck to Ranbir. I hope she stays safe. God Bless Her.
MadMan, Grape farmers can emigrate to USA if they are of European ancestry. Sikhs or any other brown folks have only choice of family based or asylum based emigration … not really for grape farming 🙂 Since this immigrants daughter is serving in the army, her parents have been promoted as “grape farmer emigres”
hello, thanks for wrtiting the comments but some of the info is incorrect. I am Ranbir Kaur and I came to the U.S. in 1993 not my parents. My parents worked in a company making computer parts. My dad became a grape grower in 2000. Parents have been in America for a very long time.
SM seems to be getting some newsworthy hits I suppose – here and here. (Assuming they are the real deal)
Thinking about it a bit – either they got to SM from a search engine or from a referral or word of mouth. In any case you guys are getting more eyeballs (and some of them seem to belong to people in the public eye😉 – kudos to y’all and keep up the good work!
hey baby i miss you and am very proud of you.
Yeah, so maybe all of Sania Mirza’s potential suitors and Lakshmi Mittal’s potential employees/business-partners who commented on SM were not that far off the mark after all. It’s possible SM or LM might google themselves one day and find themselves here 🙂
Sat sri akal I am a sikh historian and about to publish a sikh encyclopaedia and it gives me immense pleasure to know about achievements of sikhs abroad.If possible please send me in your details along with photograph. thanx regards