A 26-year-old pharmacist and volunteer in the uprising who gave his name only as Mohammed, sped down the highway toward Ajdabia on Wednesday night. Also in his car was Abdallah Kamal, an Egyptian who participated in the uprising in Cairo's Tahrir Square, as well as myself and another foreign journalist along for the ride. The road's checkpoints were marked with burning tires and manned by young men sporting Kalashnikovs and kaffiyehs wrapped around their heads.

When we arrived, the entrance to Ajdabia was marked by a pair of graceful green arches and, next to that monument, two burned-out cars that had been run off the road. What looked to be about 100 rebel fighters milled around, some in randomly assorted camouflage sets, some in jeans, t-shirts, and leather jackets. Nearly all wore Kalashnikovs slung over their shoulders, some with ammunition belts draped around their necks. Periodically, machine gun fire rang out. Someone told us, "Don't worry, people are just firing into the air to celebrate." The air was thick with the acrid smell of burning tires. A man in brown robes was kneeling next to an anti-aircraft battery, preparing Molotov cocktails.

Dozens of the volunteer soldiers thronged around us, eager to tell us their stories. All had fought at Brega that day and, having held the city, their mood was high. Some were taxi drivers, some unemployed, some had worked for Qaddafi, only days earlier, as soldiers or police. All said they were ready to fight and determined to win.

Baraa Zuweyn, a 28-year-old blacksmith from Benghazi, carried a Kalashnikov he had picked up off a dead mercenary -- from Niger, he believes -- in the Benghazi military base on February 17th. "It is a great responsibility," he said. "I've never used a weapon before today. I shot at mercenaries in Brega." He took out the clip and fiddled with it for a moment before clicking it back into place.

In a moment of playful excitement, someone handed a Kalashnikov to an 11-year-old named Ahmed. He waved it proudly in the air. As the crowd cried "Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!" several in the group tried to get this child to take his finger off the trigger.

"I am ready to die for the sake of Allah," said 42-year-old driver Ahmed Salam Bruki. He had not handled a weapon since concluding his military service 15 years earlier but had arrived in Brega ready to fight at 10 that morning.

"Qaddafi should be cut into pieces," said Jebil Mohammed, a 27-year-old who had quit the police force to join the opposition on February 17, the day mercenaries had killed his 17-year-old cousin in the Ketibah. "He destroyed Libya."

The jumbling crowd gave way to a somber man in full military fatigues. At 37, Mohammed Sharif had spent most of his life in Qaddafi's army, which he'd joined as a volunteer in 1990, eventually becoming a commando. "The men in Qaddafi's army had no spirit at all, no will to fight for him," he said. He left on February 17th. "When Qaddafi hired mercenaries to kill us [the Libyan people], I joined the opposition."