Washington, March 13 (PTI): An India-born Sikh from California is among the women who are set to trade their makeup kits for an M-16 rifle to join the US military in Iraq.

Ranbir Kaur, 19, is a part-time college student from the San Joaquin Valley town of Earlimart in California. By the end of summer, she expects to put her textbooks aside and serve as a supply clerk in Iraq.

The limits of life in a comatose San Joaquin valley farm town spurred 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. The $3,000 bonus she got for enlisting was another important factor.

The daughter of Sikh grape farmers, Kaur emigrated at the age of 7 from India to the Bay area, then moved to Earlimart, a dusty town of 6,600.

While cleaning her weapon during a training session, she decided that going to war with her high school buddies will be an ?awesome? experience to have together ?and then come back alive together?, she was quoted as saying. ?That would be the best thing.?

Kaur, who works as a clerk in a doctor?s office and studies at Bakersfield College while she waits to be deployed to Iraq, was not motivated solely by patriotism.

?It?s led to a lot more opportunities in life,? she told the California paper, The Sacramento Bee.

Kaur?s enthusiasm has led many a teenager in her town to join the military. Ten more girls and four boys were recruited from Kaur?s graduating class of 650. Three of the girls are in Kaur?s guard unit, the 349th Quartermaster Company.

The girls are trained in a clapboard building with bars over the mud-streaked windows. They clean and reassemble their M-16s. They use Q-tips and brushes, following their instructor?s directions.

?I?m just scared when the gun goes off,? Kaur was quoted as saying. ?The noise, it?s like, Whoa! Is that coming at me, or is it going to hit someone else??

The drill also includes spending eight hours on their bellies in 3-inch-deep mud and shooting at paper targets stapled to wooden boards.

For now, Kaur is ambivalent about her escape route from Earlimart. While sitting at home with her family, the teenager said she thinks she?ll quit the military after she gets married, the paper reported.

?I need to take care of my family,? she said, ?instead of being deployed and having (my children) raised by someone else.?

More than 200,000 women are on active duty in the US armed services and an additional 150,000 serve in the national guard and reserves ? an estimated 100,000 have served in the Iraq combat theatre so far.