SATURDAY MORNING, 0600 hours. The sound of voices singing the old marching cadence, "She wore a yellow ribbon," can be heard in the distance as the sun rises on the final hour of the Crucible at Parris Island, S.C. The Marine recruits of Platoon 1004 are dirty and tired, and previously concealed limps have become pronounced after two-and-a-half days of torturous training.

The Iwo Jima memorial on the parade deck is a scant three miles away. Once
there, the recruits will gladly drop their packs and fall in for the ceremony
to receive their first Marine Corps emblem and with it, the title "Marine."

Beginning. days earlier, the recruits had begun an epic journey - a quest to
conquer the Corps' hellish "Crucible." Implemented in 1996, the Crucible is
as unique to Marine boot camp as the Corps' separation of men and women
during basic training. By forcing recruits such as Mike Glowacki, a
26-year-old former soldier, to meet this challenge, the Corps hopes to
instill the confidence necessary for Marines to prevail in future missions.

The Crucible is the defining moment of recruit training," said Col. Michael
Malachowsky, commanding officer of the Recruit Training Regiment.

In 54 hours, Glowacki and his Platoon 1004 must march, or "hump" per Marine
terminology, more than 40 miles, endure combat assault courses and think
their way through 32 obstacles. Adding to the challenge, they will get only
six hours of sleep and two meals to sustain them.

500 Yards of Hell. Nine hours after stepping off on the first of the
Crucible's torturous humps the recruits conquered the towering obstacles of
the Confidence Course. Now, with the noontime sun beating down on their
backs, they face 500 yards of hell: the Combat Resupply and Bayonet Assault
Course.

The rat-tat-tat of simulated machine-gun fire reverberates off towering pine
trees as recruits sprint from a treeline and clamber over a five-foot wall.
Dropping to their bellies, they crawl on knees and elbows across 100 yards of
open ground laced with barbed wire and water-filled ditches. Lugging M-16s
and rock-filled ammo cans, they squeeze under the first two barbed wire
fences and head toward the third.

Meanwhile, prowling the middle of the course just beyond the third barbed
wire obstacle is Sgt. Drake Ferguson. Behind the camouflage grease paint on
his face, the keen eyes of the black-shirted Weapons and Field Training
Battalion instructor pick out Glowacki's team - "You're all dead!" Ferguson
shouts over the din of combat.

Grabbing a recruit's M-16, the sergeant drops to the sandy ground. Digging
his hands and feet into the sandy ground as if he were afraid he would fall
off the planet, Ferguson pushes and pulls himself along the course for 10
feet, leaving a shallow trench in his wake. Jumping back to his feet, the
green, black and brown paint on his face smeared by sand and sweat, Ferguson tosses the rifle back to the recruit. "That's the way you're supposed to do it! Now move it, move it, move it!"

Overtime. Twenty-four hours later, the recruits are well past the Crucible's
halfway point. They have run the obstacle course, crawled through the
infiltration course and humped more than 20 miles since finishing the Combat
Resupply Course. The enthusiasm the recruits exuded yesterday has dulled -
blunted by 34 hours of backbreaking training and constant mental exertion.

However, they again put aside their fatigue and ready themselves for the
live-fire of the A-Line. Known as Fire Base Khe Sanh, the A-Line is where the
future Marines get their first bitter taste of what it would be like to fire
their M-16s in combat.

As green smoke drifts along the firing line, the recruits hustle through four
firing points simulating windows, rooftops, bunkers and rubble piles. Using
the cover of a bunker, Glowacki tucks his rifle into his shoulder and quickly
aims at a pop-up target 150 meters down range. Ignoring the cracks of M-16s
firing around him, he lets out half a breath and pulls the trigger. The
target flies backward to the ground.

As the brass cases fly from the ejection port, he switches targets, aims,
fires and hits again and again until the targets disappear and the magazine
is empty. When the "All clear on the firing line" is sounded, Glowacki and
the rest of his team race from their firing positions through the dissipating
smoke, disappearing back into the treeline.

Modeled after the urban battlefields of Beirut, Somalia and Kosovo, the
A-Line is a Marine's baptism in the chaos of 21st century street fighting.

Eagle, Globe and Anchor. The obstacle course, reaction drills, live-fires and
Warrior stations are behind them. The sun has climbed into the early morning
sky over Parris Island and the final 10-mile hump to the Iwo Jima Memorial is
now just a painful memory. Uniforms covered in mud and grime, the exhausted
recruits stand in formation facing the monument depicting the raising of the
flag atop Mount Surabachi. Their ordeal is finally over.

As his senior drill instructor hands him his first Eagle, Globe and Anchor,
Glowacki's back straightens and the fatigue disappears from his face. Along
with the emblem comes a sudden change in his identity: he is now Pfc.
Glowacki - a Marine.

"I'm standing where I wanted to be even before I came to Parris Island. This
is the best feeling I've ever had in my life," Glowacki says in the shadow of
the famous statue.

After 11 weeks of recruit training and the final tests of the Crucible, the
300 young men and women have what they came to South Carolina for:
They can now claim the title of United States Marine.