The unit's 2,200 troops ship out in March to support the 50,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in anticipation of a spring offensive by Taliban insurgents fighting especially in the south.

In the white corridor of one of their barracks, young Marines dressed in camouflage fatigues and with hair shaved joke with each other while they wait for an anthrax vaccination between exercises.

As they roll up the sleeves of their t-shirts, the medical becomes more of a tattoo competition -- the needle piercing the arm of one recruit branded with the Marines' symbol of an eagle perched on top of the globe.

It was the troops' second shot to cover them in the event of a chemical attack, explained medic Dwayne Friday.

Nearby, in a large clearing in the middle of a pine forest, the Marines prepare to simulate an attack on their convoy. Wearing a beige fleece, Justin Whatley, 21, a new recruit from Mississippi, waits patiently in his Humvee.

"I have never been abroad. I have seen pictures, I know there is mountains and deserts," he says, leaning on his rifle, adding: "My wife doesn't want me to go, but it's all right, we will be back."

Standing at a distance from the new recruits, Lance Corporal Ryan Emig, 24, with experience of Iraq, doesn't try to hide his impatience to return to combat.

In Ramadi, west of Baghdad, where they were deployed from September 2006 until May last year, "there was 77 firefights per week before we arrived, and when we left we couldn't hear a shotgun."

But for Corporal "Marvelous" Marv Agabi, 21, Iraq is not what it once was. "A lot of the work in Iraq right now is security stuff. In Afghanistan it's actually fighting and that's what we do. I am excited."

After laying on a dusty bank in a shooting position for an hour and a half, Justin Jones, 21, says he would like to be in Afghanistan already.

It's not only his first deployment but his first real journey. "My mom was a little upset when I first signed up. She worries the worst could happen."

The next morning the unit has physical training starting at dawn involving a five kilometer (three mile) run, endless pull-ups and 100 crunches in two minutes.

"They want us to be as fit as possible. We might have to go up to the mountains," says Jones, his eyes raising to fix on the imaginary challenge.

With a bullet proof vest and a 50-kilo (110-pound) pack on his back, he struggles over to a helicopter sent in to evacuate him, before disappearing in a blinding cloud of sand and dust.

At another end of the camp, the Marines get rolled over time and time again in a simulator to prepare them for the eventuality of driving off the road.

"It is a definitely a good experience. You learn how to get out of there being disoriented," explains Kyle Williams, 21.

Jeremy Ramirez, a 21-year-old New Yorker, watches his comrades training with a touch of envy. Inside his helmet he carries a picture of his wife and daughter. This time, he's staying at home.

"I really wanted to go but I've got issues with my wife, and they advised me to stay here and fix it, otherwise I would screw it and it could also screw my carrier," he explains.

It's a hard thing to admit when a notice on the wall opposite the officers' quarters reads: "The only reason the United States of America needs a Marine Corps is to fight and win wars. Everything else is secondary."

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