Ranbir Kaur

RANBIR KAUR - FIRST SIKH GIRL TO JOIN US ARMY

Born a US citizen Ranbir Kaur was the first Sikh girl to join the US army, which she did when she was only 17 years old. Normally 18 years of age is the minimum allowed, but with a parent's permission enlistment at 17 is allowed. She is 20 now Ranbir Kaur now part of the United Sates National Guard made headlines in 2003 after becoming the first Sikh girl to join the astimated 200,000 women serving in the branches of the US military.

Born in Nijjran village of Jalandhar district, the young warrior reached the US as a seven year old after her father Mahan Singh, seeking a brighter finantial future, secured a US green card in 1990.

Brought up in the very isolated town of Earlimart, California her brush with the uniform dates back to 2001 when she was a freshman (9th grader) in a high school at Delano, which was the closest city.

In 2003, this daughter of a Jat Sikh grape grower faced the ire of white supremacists, who posted spam e-mails, suggesting that she had only joined the military in an attempt to gain citizenship easily. They hadn't even bothered to find out that she already was a US citizen. The young girl set about proving her detractors wrong through hard training.

During the 2005 Katrina hurricane which devastated the Gulf Coast and New Orleans, the devout Sikh was instrumental in recovering the Guru Granth Sahib after the New Orleans gurudwara was submerged.

The organisation, United Sikhs, had sought her assistance and Ranbir got everybody moving after she announced that the living Guru of the Sikhs was under water. Against a background of flooding, robbery and random gunfire, US Air Force rescue experts David Cruz and Tom Bausmas were able to rescue the scriptures in an operation that lasted 22 hours.