More than a few of these soldiers have disappeared in the days since the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon. No one knows for sure where they are, but neighbors guess that some belong to the elite special operations unit called Delta Force, and that they have made their way to places near Afghanistan. Delta Force is thought to be based at Fort Bragg, just a few miles down the road.

Chris Musto, a college student who works at a local cafe, said some of his regular customers had suddenly stopped showing up.

"One guy I used to see all over the place," Mr. Musto said. "I saw him at the bar, at the gas station, at the grocery store. But I haven't seen him since all this started, or even his truck."

Others have also noticed unexplained disappearances here.

"There's a group of younger people who used to come in late at night who aren't around anymore," said Patrick O'Donnell, owner of O'Donnell's Pub, a popular tavern.

Who these soldiers are and where they have gone will always be a matter of speculation. The Army does not release information about Delta Force or even acknowledge its existence. Asked if it trains at Fort Bragg, a spokesman for the Army's Special Operations Command, Sgt. Amanda Glenn, replied, "We do not comment on that unit."

Many people around here, however, not only say that Delta Force is based at Fort Bragg but take it as a point of pride. Some say that over the years, many of its members have gravitated to idyllic Southern Pines.

"I'm sure there are Delta Force people here," said Joe Monroe, manager of the local bookshop. "This is a place that gives you a relaxed feeling. That's probably something they need after all the time they spend practicing the awful things they do."

Army publications do not mention Delta Force, but for a time in the 1990's the Army personnel Web site had this notice: "Delta is organized for the conduct of missions requiring rapid response with surgical applications of a wide variety of unique skills, while maintaining the lowest possible profile of U.S. involvement."

Col. Charlie A. Beckwith, who was the first commander of Delta Force, published a memoir in which he identified Fort Bragg as its headquarters. Colonel Beckwith, who died in 1994, wrote that its members were trained "to put two head shots in each terrorist."

That makes them perfectly suited to the war the United States is now preparing to wage. If men like Osama bin Laden are hiding in remote caves or underground bunkers, military experts say, no one is more likely to overpower them than the commandos of Delta Force.

"They do not serve warrants and they do not make arrests," said Eric Haney, who says he served with Delta Force for eight years and who now lives in Georgia. "Their job is to kill people we want killed. That makes them ideal for the situation our country is facing right now. At this moment, I suspect a lot of them have already been pre-positioned in places that are a lot closer to Afghanistan than they are to the East Coast of the United States."

Military historians say that Delta Force was created in 1977 after a series of terrorist attacks in various parts of the world, including the murders of Olympic athletes in Munich. Those who want to join the unit face a grueling selection process. It includes living for days without food in hostile terrain and training with weapons including bamboo sticks and "flash-bang" grenades that temporarily blind and stun adversaries. According to Colonel Beckwith's memoir, successful applicants are "audacious, free-thinking individuals" who can be "at times extremely patient and at other times extremely aggressive."

Delta Force is believed to have fewer than 2,000 members. That is a small fraction of the 30,000 men and women on active duty with all special operations units, among them Rangers, Navy Seals and Special Forces, who are sometimes called Green Berets.

Officers close to Delta Force say that several hundred members of other elite military squads apply to join each year. Only a few dozen are ultimately accepted.

Unlike other elite units, Delta Force commandos are trained to operate in small squads or even alone. They may dress as they please, wear their hair as long as they please and make decisions in the field that normal soldiers may not.

"These are trained killers," said Daniel Goure, a former Defense Department official who is now a senior fellow at the Lexington Institute, a policy research group based in Virginia. "They're just right for the kind of tactical operation we're looking at, like going into a cave or bunker network full of armed people and making sure none of them get out alive. They're perfect for taking out bin Laden and all the people around him."

Because Delta Force operates in great secrecy, no outsider knows the names of its members, much less where they live. Many members do not even tell their families the name of the unit to which they belong.

But people in Southern Pines cannot help noticing that something here has changed.

"People you used to see, you don't see anymore," a waitress at Mac's Restaurant said today. "They're here one day and just gone the next."

One of the absent may have been the anonymous parishioner at St. Anthony's Roman Catholic Church who last week wrote a note in the prayer book requesting blessings "for the military and our families as we obliterate evil."

At the stationery store, Carol Sylverstein, who works behind the counter, says she assumes that some people who live here are military commandos but prefers to think of them simply as people who "shop and go to church and bring their kids to school just like anyone else."

"You hear words like `delta' and you know more or less what's behind it, but to us, these men as just part of our community," Ms. Sylverstein said. "Now they're off doing something we can't even imagine."