NRI
Sikh girl on US Kabul mission
CHANDIGARH, May 16, 2006
The Times of India
Khushwant Singh
She slung an M-16 rifle on her shoulders
for the first time when she was 17. At 20, she is patrolling
the streets of Kabul.
Meet Indian-born Ranbir Kaur of the US National Guards
who first hit headlines in 2003 after becoming the first
Sikh girl to join the US armed forces that consists
of over 200,000 women soldiers.
Presently on active duty in Afghanistan, Specialist
Kaur is attached with the 315th SECFOR and is
on a one-and-a-half-year mission in the war-torn country.
Born in Nijjran village of Jalandhar district, the
young warrior reached the US as a seven-year-old after
her father Mahan Singh, pursuing dollar dreams, secured
a green card in 1990
Brought up in an isolated town, Earlimart, in California,
her brush with the uniform dates back to 2001 when she
was a freshman (Grade IX) in high school at Delano,
which was the closest city.
I would see (officers of the) army, marines,
air force and the navy standing outside the career centre
of the school distributing fliers to students. I thought
the uniform was awesome, she said.
In 2003, this daughter of a Jat Sikh grape grower faced
the ire of white supremacists, who posted spam emails
terming her recruitment as a means to seek citizenship.
But she was already a US citizen, and the young girl
set about proving her detractors wrong through hard
training.
If death doesnt deter me, nothing else
does, she told TOI in an exclusive interview.
I was so upset earlier that I asked myself, did
I join the forces for this treatment? But then, Im
me and I do what I got to do.
She was initially recruited to be a supply clerk during
the Iraq war as rules didnt permit women to fight
frontline. In a situation like Afghanistan, everything
is frontline, she said.
During the 2005 Katrina hurricane in New Orleans, the
devout Sikh was instrumental in the recovery of the
Guru Granth Sahib after the New Orleans gurudwara was
submerged.
United Sikhs, an organisation, had sought her assistance
and Ranbir had got everybody moving after she announced
that the living Guru of the Sikhs was under water. Amid
random shootings, air force rescue experts David Cruz
and Tom Bausmas had rescued the scriptures in an operation
that lasted 22 hours.
1. Ranbir Kaur, now 20, became the first Sikh woman
to join the US armed forces in 2003. She is now on a
one-anda-half-year mission to Afghanistan
2. GI JANE: Specialist Kaur was recruited to be a supply
clerk during the Iraq war. She had also helped recover
a submerged Guru Granth Sahib after Hurricane Katrina
hit New Orleans
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