That's why 8,000 young men splashed one mile through the rain, jumped across ditches nine feet wide, walked 15 yards over narrow wooden planks, and puffed up their chest to the required 82 cm recently; they were participants at one of the largest army recruitment rallies held at Ahmedabad Cantonment.

These 19-year-olds, with blood coursing fiercely through their veins, turned up in numbers, a good 3,000 more than usual, surprising recruitment officers with their josh. At the forefront was the desire to take the place of the soldiers who had lost their lives defending the icy heights of Turtuk and Batalik and see to it that missions were accomplished. Many of the boys said they may go back tofarming, ``but only after every single infiltrator was driven out of the country''.

There was representation from homes that had never seen a man in the army before, and from villages of mill workers and families that traditionally relied upon agriculture as a means of livelihood. Geographically, it was pretty well spread-out: youths from the Adivasi tribes of the Panchmahals, Godhra and Dahod, recognised as a warrior clan, from far-flung villages in Kutch in the west, Sabarkantha in the north and Daman in the south. There were boys who had walked through the night to reach bus stops, had no place to stay, and were shunting between nearby hospital corridors and roadside trees, with their belongings in cloth-wrapped parcels.

Recruitment rallies are held twice in three months. The number of vacancies has increased about three times -- from 100 to 350 -- and the loss of life at Kargil is considered to be one of the reasons. But the response has been overwhelming.

``Kargil seems to have evoked nationalpride in everyone,'' says Col A K Arora, Block Recruitment Officer from Ahmedabad. ``Usually we get about 5,000 boys for a recruitment drive. This time we have about 3,000 more. Besides this, there are 35-year-olds walking into my office. They say they want to join the army and go to Kargil tomorrow. We have a tough time explaining to them that the army cannot compromise on standards and age.''

``We are getting sons of serving officers and war widows, families where the army has been a tradition; but what is more important, we are also getting boys from families that have never represented in the army before. They all want to serve on the borders,'' says a pleased Col K M Sharma, BRO from Jamnagar, who is overseeing the recruitment papers.

``In our village of 10,000, barely 15 people are in the Army. We are here because of Kargil,'' says Lalit Pande of Punsri in Sabarkantha. Adds Anil G Makwana, son of a textile mill worker from Petlad town in Anand district and first in his family to seek a career inthe Army, ``I want to go to Kargil right away. My mother is praying that I get selected and can serve my country.''

``Eent ka jawab pathar se dena hai,'' says another hopeful, 18-year-old Ajay Kumar Chauhan, whose brother is a Signals man posted in Ladakh.

``We are here to take the place of the men that fall. It doesn't matter how many soldiers die, not one infiltrator should be left inside our territory,'' says 19-year-old Keshan Singh from Kandiwa in Ferozpur. ``Why don't they just give us MMGs and leave us at the border? These Pakistanis have to be taught a lesson,'' he states, as the others look on in mutual assent.

This time it's not just a question of career that has brought them here, but the added pride of being able to serve the country.