For the 935 cadets, including 149 women, who flung their caps in the air at the end of the traditional graduation ceremony, the prospect of active duty is one of virtual certainty rather than possibility.

"Since you arrived here, our world has changed dramatically," said Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who delivered the graduation address. "Today, the duty to defend freedom falls to you."

While hailing the overthrow of regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, Rumsfeld warned that the war on terror, launched in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks, would dominate the cadets' careers for years to come.

"The truth is, we are closer to the beginning of this struggle ... than to its end," Rumsfeld said.

"I suspect that when you first arrived ... you imagined that your most challenging times as an army officer might involve activities like enforcing the peace in the Balkans," he said. "But, as we've seen, life is not predictable."

Members of the class of 2004 entered West Point before the September 11 attacks and have watched as the seniors who graduated before them have gone on to war in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Having spent four years in an institution where codes of honour and duty are a daily mantra, they are also entering a US military tainted by the abuse of prisoners in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

In an oblique reference to the prison scandal, Rumsfeld called on the graduates to "bring out the very best" in the soldiers they have been trained to lead, "including respect for others."

From the roughly 11,000 to 12,000 applications made to West Point each year, only about 1,000 students are accepted. Around 80 percent of the incoming class makes it through to graduation, when the cadets are commissioned as first lieutenants.

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