Lacking any sunglasses, the highest-ranked woman in British Army history squints to inspect her troops under the dusty glare of the Californian sun.
Sharon Nesmith is two months into her role as deputy chief of the general staff, a position that involves a gruelling amount of travel. After 24 hours at Fort Irwin, a US military base in the Mojave desert, her next stop is another long-haul flight away in New Zealand.
Nesmith, 52, shows no signs of having places to rush to, however, as she takes care to speak to all the British troops who have spent a fortnight training with their US counterparts in snowstorms, dust clouds and 40C heat.
Having joined the army in 1992, Nesmith faced significant hurdles at the start
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