A Homeless Runaway Who Became a Major General

At 16, Linda Singh was an honour student in Frederick, Maryland. She hoped to play basketball at the University of Maryland and study engineering. Then a serious incident involving a close family member, and her mother's response when she told her parents, left her feeling she could not stay. She has said that the next day was the last day she ever stayed at home.

With nowhere to go, and too embarrassed to tell other relatives, she stayed with friends or slept outside. She has said that if it is not too cold, sleeping outside is not so bad. She dropped out of high school. Fortune describes her as a runaway who spent time as a homeless youth and kept attending school as long as she could, with good grades, before she had to stop.

A job at a mall that housed a National Guard recruiting office changed her direction. In 1981 a high school diploma was not needed to enlist, and at 17 she needed her parents' signatures, which the recruiter obtained. She has described the Army as a source of pay, food, education, housing and job training, and said it saved her life. She found basic training easy and received a letter of commendation, and soon after boot camp she earned her high school diploma.

Her first sergeant suggested she become an officer, and she was commissioned in 1991 through Officer Candidate School in Reisterstown, Maryland. She served in Kosovo and on a combat tour in Afghanistan. She also built a civilian career as a management consultant and became a managing director at Accenture. She became the 29th adjutant general of Maryland, overseeing more than 6,700 members, and led the Guard's response in Baltimore in April 2015 after the death of Freddie Gray.