Many Happy Returns

Still, there were difficult, lonely days. Sitting down at the computer and planning their trip added to the excitement of anticipating the homecoming and gave her comfort. On a subconscious level, she says, planning created a feeling of assurance that Taylor was coming home. It's the way an otherwise rational mind works: If you have tickets for a certain date at a certain place, then obviously that's where you'll be when that time comes.

You'll get a five-day Park Hopper pass, hit four parks in four days, and on the fifth day, perhaps because you're too polite to say no, you'll meet a reporter and head first thing in the morning to revisit Animal Kingdom.

Gone but Not Forgotten

We board an open, safari-style vehicle for a ride through terrain that has been made to look African, with big game at every turn. "I smell a skunk, and I think I saw a baby one," Liam pipes up during the ride.

In the Asian section, Taylor hands Liam the laminated map, and the boy pretends to guide us by pointing along a route with curves but no turns.

He waits patiently in line to greet the various characters in the park. By the fifth day, he has the routine down pat. Just before his turn, he asks Mom or Dad for his autograph book. When his moment comes, he gets the signature, poses for a photo and gives a big smile.

Bats are one of his favorite animals, and Animal Kingdom has an exhibit with Malaysian fruit bats with six-foot wing spans -- almost as large as those of American eagles. Healthy-looking animals in the Asian section of the park roam among museum-quality replicas of temple ruins, like those of Angkor Wat.

Throughout the day, the couple shoots pictures, mostly of Liam. By the time the trip is over, they'll have hours of videotape and more than 800 photographs.

When Delacey takes Liam for a potty break, Taylor confides that his biggest worry about going to Iraq was that Liam would forget him. A colleague who went to Iraq before Taylor did told him that his youngest was frightened of him when he returned.

By the time Taylor arrived in Iraq, phone access was better. Occasionally he'd also get on a webcam so that Liam could see him, even though the connection wasn't fast enough to allow him to be heard as well as seen. Meanwhile, Delacey regularly videotaped Liam and sent footage to Taylor.

"I watched Liam growing up on film," Taylor says.

People back home sent Taylor prepaid phone cards. One set of phones on the base allowed for calls costing only 4 cents a minute, but there were usually long lines for those, and calls were limited to 30 minutes. For phone access costing 29 cents a minute, the wait was usually a relatively short 20 to 30 minutes, and he could talk as long as his phone card held out.

Taylor says he got amazing support from back home. Delacey created an e-mail group list, and people she knew sent the address to their friends. Soon the list grew to more than 200.