Many Happy Returns

"People I never met would send e-mails saying, 'I wanted to let you know I'm thinking of you; I'm praying for you,' " Taylor says. Delacey had been a teacher, and former colleagues had classes write him letters. Taylor would distribute some to men and women who got little mail.

The minute Taylor returned to the States, it became clear he needn't have worried about being forgotten by his young son. He arrived with his battalion on a drill field at Fort Stewart, Ga., and marched in formation toward an area where Delacey and Liam were among those waiting.

While sitting in the sunshine on a patio outside the Shades of Green, Delacey remembers that day.

"Liam was kicking his feet and saying he was going to run to his daddy as soon as he saw him," Delacey says. "The mass finally parted, and there he was. The two just melted into each other's arms."

Focusing on What's Important

Children even in their first year can miss their parents, says T. Berry Brazelton, the famed pediatrician who recently released an updated edition of "Touchpoints: Birth to 3." The many thousands of American children with parents in Iraq or Afghanistan "are going through a lot more than we know," he says.

Brazelton approves of the Rileys' handling of the situation. "The children who get that kind of attention will be resilient and sail through," he says.

Taking a vacation -- and it doesn't matter where it is -- gives the members of any family an important chance to step outside their normal responsibilities and focus purely on each other, Brazelton says. It's particularly critical to a family that has been torn asunder.

Back at Disney's MGM during the Rileys' last day in the park, the family joins the crowd awaiting the start of a parade. Numerous adults pull out video cameras to tape the characters and vehicles passing by.

Taylor tapes the parade for a mere second, just for context, then turns his back on it. He trains his lens on Liam. The memory he captures is not of the main event, but of Liam's reaction to it.