Instead of usual ultra skinny runway models, Vogue actually featured real women…women currently serving in the military. So much focus has been on the possibility of women serving in Special Operations Forces, it is nice to see images celebrating women in the military in their everyday life. While the article leading into the gallery introduces the images with the previous Sec Def’s decision to allow women in SOF, the photographer Jackie Nickerson captured women playing an integral part of the military outside of the spotlight.

At a moment when the world order seems to be shifting in unpredictable ways, there’s a special resonance to Jackie Nickerson’s images of some of this generation’s crop of women warriors, stationed on Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Honolulu. Nickerson described the service members she met as confident, upbeat, incredibly polite, and utterly self-assured. “These women are fantastic,” she said. “I wanted to make pictures that empowered women, that captured women who were strong, who are part of defending the USA. They did not disappoint.”- Vogue

Here are a few of the images below:

U.S. Army Command Sergeant Major Teresa Duncan, 8th Military Police Brigade. Duncan is the senior enlisted adviser for 1,200 soldiers in the military police battalion. She has served for 26 years. Photographed at Schofield Barracks.
Master-at-Arms 2nd Class Tamika High, Harbor Patrol Unit, U.S. Navy Harbor Security, Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam. High joined the Navy with her twin sister and reported to boot camp on their 18th birthday. She has served for seven years and is from Conley, Georgia. Photographed at Ford Island, Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam.
U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Christina Billingsley, 520th Military Working Dog Detachment. Billingsley has served for 17 years. She is from Lanett, Alabama. Photographed at Schofield Barracks.

Check out the reset of the photos here.

All images courtesy of Vogue