Lady Cadets of Pakistan

Lady Cadet Wardah Noor prepares to lead a mock attack during field exercises. Lady Cadet Wardah Noor, a slim 24-year-old Pakistani with deep-set eyes and an erect bearing, has pinned all her hopes on becoming a soldier.

“I found my civilian life to be slow moving and unsatisfying,” she told me one evening in September after a full day of class and training exercises at the prestigious Pakistan Military Academy (PMA). Raised in a middle-class home, Wardah had already earned a college degree in computer science but found little opportunity in her small village in Pakistan’s Punjab province, where horse-driven carts were still the primary mode of transportation. She craved discipline and structure. She wanted, she realized, to join the army.

LC Wardah was one of 32 women, ages 23 to 27, who comprised the PMA’s 2013 lady cadet class. The Academy is located in the town of Kakul, just a few miles from the Abbottabad compound where Osama bin Laden was killed by a team of Navy SEALs in 2011. It’s Pakistan’s answer to West Point; it’s just as hard to gain entry, and those who do, go on to lead young soldiers into battle.

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VICE Profiles: Lady Cadets of Pakistan