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Kabul � This is what nation-building looks like � a dozen young Afghan men standing in camouflage uniforms in a cold drizzle while they wait for the signal to drop to their bellies, peer down a rifle range, and fire their M-16s.

They are a few of the 7,000 Afghan army recruits at the sprawling Kabul Military Training Center, a facility built by the Soviets in the 1970s and bombed out by the United States in 2001. It is now back in commission, feeding men into Afghanistan�s premier national institution, the Afghan National Army.

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