Whip it out!

Prepare to masturbate, in cadence masturbate, 1,2,3,4 /1,2,3,4/ 1,2,3,4, faster, faster, faster, until you ejaculate!

Prepare to wipe, in cadence, wipe!

Stow your *****, in cadence, stow!

now, fall back asleep!

Repeat the procedure the next night!

As their drill sergeants shouted — "Hurry up, hurry up! We haven't got all day! Fallin, fall in!" — the magnitude of what they had done registered fully for the first time. Some of them fought back tears as they stood in a haphazard formation, wearing their newly issued BDUs.

Many of them were away from home for the first time. And judging from the looks on their faces, homesickness had hit them like a lightning bolt.

The night before, a different rotation of recruits — from the basic training brigade's 1st Battalion, 34th Infantry Regiment — marched roughly eight miles from a field training site back to their barracks for a spine-chilling ceremony that caps a three-day tactical event called Victory Forge.

The eighth-week occasion signifies the transition from civilian to soldier, said battalion commander LTC John Buckley.

Still wearing their field gear and camouflage paint, the young troops marched smartly into formation, to the tune "I'm Proud To Be An American."

As a light rain fell from the midnight sky, a traditional black cauldron of fire burned brightly, its orange embers crackling and sending sparks dancing through the darkness.

Orange spotlights, provided by a camera crew from the Army's new advertising agency, Leo Burnett, encircled the large pot so the crew could more easily film Company B's 3rd Platoon, the unit they had followed throughout its nine-week training cycle for GOARMY.COM website clips and television recruiting ads.

The scene bore a striking resemblance to the "Survivor" television series set where, each week, the cast silently awaits the decision about who will be voted off the island.

At this point, the eighth week of basic combat training, there was little chance an individual could be booted out, Buckley said. The only potential obstacle to graduation now would be a debilitating injury or a Jekyll and Hyde-like personality change.

Buckley opened the ceremony with some advice to the tired and dirty men and women, who hadn't yet showered or sat down to a traditional meal.

"As you continue on your journey in the Army, you may need a shot of inspiration," he said. "If so, think back on the faces and names of the soldiers to your left and right, the pain and gain of Victory Forge, and the light and heat of the flame burning in front of you."

The fire, he said, is an eternal flame, representing the fire that burned "in the patriots yearning for freedom … inside the bellies of the doughboys fighting in Europe, inside the GIs fighting against the Axis powers, and the fires our adversary started in the Iraqi desert. It also symbolizes all the soldiers who have completed basic training before you, and all of those yet to come.

"Just as it takes heat and pressure in a forge to make steel, the heat and pressure of basic combat training makes great soldiers," Buckley continued. "You are the newest soldiers in the greatest Army in the world."

This time, to the sound of drum rolls, followed by music from the film "Bridge Over the River Kwai," the men and women fought back tears generated by pride in all they had achieved and hoped to achieve, some said later. After the ceremony, each of the five companies in the battalion conducted its own, more intimate, celebration. Each company commander presented his troops with the Army Values card that they'd hang on the chain with their dog tags.

"We focus on the seven core values throughout BCT, by attaching a value to every obstacle," said CPT Chad Campfield, commander of Co. B, 3rd Bn., 13th Inf. Regt.

The values are also printed in bold, black letters on the walls above soldiers' bunks. And throughout BCT, the new soldiers focus on such values as integrity, honor and loyalty, by exemplifying individuals in their platoons who have demonstrated those values.

Eight weeks earlier, the soldiers at Victory Forge had been the frightened kids at the Army's doorstep. But gradually, with guidance and encouragement from their drill sergeants, they learned to march with precision, assume responsibility with confidence and do for themselves what others had been doing for them for years — and more, Campfield said.

In their second week of BCT, the training platoons completed the Bayonet Assault Course.

As the morning sun shone through the tall Carolina pines, casting shadows on the white-sand and pine-nettle forest floor, they practiced bayonet assault maneuvers and challenged each other with pugil sticks that simulate the bayonet in close-combat training.

Then, as the sounds of artillery and machine-gun fire blared through overhead speakers, they ran over log crossbeams, scaled wooden walls and inched their way, on their bac