With Alpha Co., 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, north of the Euphrates River, Iraq - The young men of Alpha Co. are standing on the bank of the Euphrates River, their faces filled with awe - not of the river, but for just being here.

The river itself at this point isn't all that impressive, just a slow-moving, black-watered stream with a mud bank on the west and a marsh on the east. But the young Marines have all heard of it, and somehow the name evokes some of the excitement and adventure they were looking for when they joined the Marines.

"This is called the Fertile Crescent," Lance Cpl. Sean Lamb explains to a reporter. "I've read about it in books. It's where civilization began. Seeing it is pretty cool, since I've never even been out of America before."

"Our (Marine) recruiters all said we'd get to see the world and stuff," says Cpl. Jason Nazario, 23. "And this is it. We're doing it."

Alpha Co.'s trip to the Euphrates has been arduous and even deadly. After being the first large force to cross into Iraq, the 200 or so men of Alpha Co. got into a fight with the remnants of an Iraqi brigade, a brief but savage melee that cost Alpha Co. Lt. Shane Childers his life and killed some two dozen Iraqis. After resting for a day, Alpha joined other Marine units for a push northward, deeper into Iraq.

The exact route and destination can't be revealed, nor can the size of the Marine column that formed up for the northward drive. But it's enormous, a column of tanks, Humvees, amphibious assault vehicles and trucks that stretches from the northern horizon to the southern.

While the column is mighty, like most things military it is also slow. As the column starts to move in the early afternoon hours, it lurches along at 5 mph, then 15, then 5 again, and then comes to a complete stop. Stop, start, stop, start - the column moves like an inchworm.

The terrain is the same as the Marines have seen since they arrived in Kuwait nearly two months ago: flat, severe, barren desert without a hint of a tree. The column's path is littered with the detritus of units farther ahead: empty plastic water bottles, plastic MRE bags, wooden ammo boxes, the remains of a wrecked Humvee cannibalized for its parts. What isn't seen is any evidence of war. There are no burned Iraqi vehicles, no bodies; there's no evidence that the Iraqi army thought enough of this ground to fight for it. The column rolls on unopposed.

As night falls, the column moves on with no lights, the vehicle drivers seeing their way with night-vision goggles. The sky is brilliantly starlit, and off to the east the flash of artillery glows and recedes, just above the horizon.

Because Alpha Co. is mechanized infantry - "meched up," in Marine parlance - the Marines ride in amphibious assault vehicles, or "tracks," 22-ton monsters with tanklike treads. Twenty or more Marines are crammed into the passenger compartment of each track, with their weapons and gear, in a space roughly the size of a standard American prison cell.

The noise inside sounds like a giant garbage disposal mangling a giant spoon, and diesel fumes from the engines fill the compartment. The vibrations could dislodge teeth. After an hour, the Marines inside are almost catatonic from the vibration and the fumes.

They try to sleep, fitfully, legs and arms everywhere and all mixed in together like a litter of puppies - except these puppies are dressed in Kevlar and they cradle M-16s. Marines have to sleep when they can; they never know when they'll get another opportunity.

Finally, at 11 p.m., after nearly 11 hours inside the tracks, Alpha Co. stops, and the Marines roll out to sleep on the sand. Three hours later they are up again, back in the tracks, grinding their way north.

The terrain is different now, less flat, with low mesas and hills. Suddenly there are some irrigated agricultural fields lining the road, and while the fields are meager and sparse, to these desert-rat Marines they seem as lush as Ireland.

"That's the most green I've seen in two months," marvels Lt. Jason Angell, 30, of Brea, a forward artillery observer with Alpha Co.

And finally they reach it, the Euphrates River, the one they've heard about. Despite its mundane appearance, no one seems disappointed. Like Lamb and Nazario, they seem excited that they're standing beside something famous.

Then it's back on the tracks, heading north. The land is more populated now; they see herdsman with sheep, and more crops. A few Iraqi civilians stand by the road, waving and patting their stomachs, asking for food, and the Marines throw them MREs; one young Iraqi girl has a bag of MREs slung over her shoulder, like it's Halloween.

A few miles further and the column leaves the lush river area and plows into sand dunes. The column stops, the Marines pile out to eat MREs in a dust storm. Now comes the word that another Marine unit fighting at Nasiriyah suffered heavy casualties.

And there's a possibility that Alpha Co. could face a fight a few miles up the road.

"This could be harder than we thought it would be," says Alpha Co. commander Capt. Blair Sokol, 30, of San Clemente.

Suddenly the excitement of seeing the Euphrates River is forgotten. Quietly, grimly, the young Marines sit in the sand, cleaning their weapons and waiting for the word to head north.