GHAZNI PROVINCE, Afghanistan — Their engines roaring, the big helicopters lifted off from Bagram Air Base near Kabul and climbed over the mountains Wednesday, the shadows of their rotors flashing over the dun-colored peaks.

Another group of soldiers from the Virginia Army National Guard’s 3rd Battalion packed into two CH-47 Chinook helicopters.

Taliban guerrillas sometimes fire rifles and Stinger missiles at the troops shuttling to Camp Ghazni, a forward operating base in southeastern Afghanistan.

The helicopters flew over miles of unchanging landscape of high desert valleys and dusty mountains and scattered patches of green trees and farmland.

An hour later, the helicopters landed without incident and the soldiers filed into Camp Ghazni, a small, concrete-walled compound where the Virginia guardsmen are replacing the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment.

For the next year, most of the National Guard battalion, which includes more than 200 soldiers from Southwest Virginia, will be stationed at Camp Ghazni.

Most of Company C, meanwhile, will be stationed at Camp Tiger, a tiny, remote base near the main base of Camp Ghazni, though some soldiers from the company are staying at Bagram Air Base to provide base perimeter security.

Company C — a combination of Bedford-, Roanoke- and Christiansburg-based companies — is considering renaming Camp Tiger as Camp Bedford in honor of their Bedford boys’ forebears in the 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Division, who led the D-Day invasion at Omaha Beach in World War II.

Company C’s officers have been at Camp Tiger for a week, shadowing the Marines on patrol and laying the groundwork for the arrival of the rest of the guardsmen. Most Company C soldiers arrived Monday and Tuesday. The rest are due soon.

Company C soldiers already are patrolling around the clock with with their Marine counterparts.

"It’s going well so far," said Sgt. Matt Laney of Roanoke.

Army intelligence and Marine officers say that Ghazni Province is a mixture of pro-American and pro-Taliban public sentiment.

The Islamic extremists here have attacked the Afghan National Army, Afghan police and U.N. election workers, but they have not attacked the Marines, said Col. Dale Alford, battalion commander of the Marines.

About 20 people, most of them Afghan civilians, have been killed in the past month by remote-controlled roadside bombs, Alford said.

The Marines have captured about 10 suspected Taliban members in the past month, he said.

Alford dismissed recent claims by Taliban leader Mullah Omar that the Taliban is making significant advances in Ghazni and Kandahar, located farther southwest.

"That’s bull----," said Alford, whose battalion has been at Camps Ghazni and Tiger for a month and is now headed to the Pakistan border area where attacks are heaviest.

Lt. Sean Hoover, a 3rd Battalion intelligence specialist, and Lt. Col. Blake Ortner, 3rd Battalion commander, said extremist attacks are expected to increase in advance of the mid-October presidential election.

The landmark election, coupled with parliamentary elections scheduled for next spring, are crucial to the U.S.-led coalition’s war on terrorism and the reconstruction of Afghanistan.

The 3rd Battalion’s mission is to help support the elections and reconstruction by patrolling, gathering intelligence, seizing weapons caches and doing other tasks. They will work alongside Afghan National Army soldiers. A provincial reconstruction team, which includes military and civilian members, is based at Camp Ghazni.

Alford said that U.S. and Afghan troops and reconstruction workers have made good progress so far in rebuilding Ghazni’s schools, wells, roads, clinics and other infrastructure.

The 3rd Battalion is expected to take over fully from the Marines in early August. All the guardsmen’s equipment, including its armored vehicles, are to have arrived by then.

On Wednesday, the group of 3rd Battalion soldiers who flew into Camp Ghazni, where a rocket attack occurred Monday, boarded trucks for the trip to Camp Tiger.

The soldiers had their guns at the ready as a precaution as they traveled down Highway One, one of the few major blacktopped roads in the country.

A growing insurgency has limited most reconstruction to Kabul, but there were many signs of progress here, including buildings under construction or repair.

The Virginians passed hundreds of Afghans along the road — young and old, men and women, businessmen and goat herders — many of whom waved and smiled at the convoy.

"I live for things like today," said Marine Gunnery Sgt. Denis O’Sullivan, who’s based at Camp Tiger. "A woman in a burqa waved at me last week and I almost fell over."

Some 3rd Battalion soldiers, including a few who have never traveled outside Virginia, were stunned by the poverty and the friendliness they found.

"It makes me think of all the people back home who say we shouldn’t be here," said Spec. Clay Lankford.

"They’re poor, but they’re so happy. It’s hard not to cry," said Sgt. David Draper. "It feels like a Christmas parade."

The guardsmen drove through the city and into the countryside, a barren and starkly beautiful landscape of rocks and mud-brick homes.

Camp Tiger sits on a hilltop. The compound was built two years ago as a private home and is now rented out by the U.S. military.

The mud-brick compound resembles a medieval fort with high walls, big gates and watchtowers at each corner.

The Marines and guardsmen are always on duty in the watch towers and operating posts and they frequently patrol in the province.

The buildings are tents and plywood, electricity comes from a generator, latrine wastes are burned in barrels.

Summers are hot and dusty. Winters, with first snowfalls in September, are long and bitterly cold.

"It’s not much, but it’s home," said Sgt. Rob Turner of Rustburg.