They are also eager to consolidate Western values at home, both to increase their own confidence and that of foreign investors. Their leaders welcome the moral standard NATO provides for their still turbulent post-Communist societies.

Six weeks before the alliance's 50th anniversary summit meeting in Washington, where the champagne and the rhetoric will overflow, members continue to argue about the organization's future.

But these three countries also bring a fresh dose of support to Washington's aims for redefining NATO's mission, officials of all three countries suggest. It was the United States, after all, that pushed their membership the hardest, a Polish official said.

''We want to be good Europeans,'' he said. ''But more than anyone except perhaps the British, we understand how important it is to keep the Americans involved in Europe.''

In the Service of NATO, An End to Servility

For the militaries of all three nations, NATO membership is also a chance to pacify, if not bury, some ghosts. While some officers feel they are simply exchanging the language of one empire for another, most recognize that it is a voluntary alliance that works by consensus.

Col. Petr Vlcnovsky, who commands a Czech air defense brigade, said that membership in the Warsaw Pact meant a depressing servility to Moscow's orders. A military career, he said, commanded little social respect. ''We had no opportunity to make decisions as a sovereign state,'' he said. ''Now we can decide for ourselves, as a full partner in NATO committees.''

In Poland, the military, like the Roman Catholic Church, is at the center of its national identity, and the Hungarians, too, have an important military tradition. While there is some truth to ''The Good Soldier Schweik'' notion of the Czech military man -- survival despite apparent bungling in 300 years of occupation -- Czech soldiers have served with distinction alongside the British in Bosnia and the Americans in the Persian Gulf.