But that family time is unlike most, says his wife, Jennie Taylor.

After all, her husband is stationed in Baghdad and her children wouldn't know their dad very well if not for the Internet camera in their North Ogden home. Their youngest was only 3 months old when Brent left for Iraq.

"He might go into culture shock when my husband gets in and he sees he's in 3-D," Taylor said, adding that she and Brent wanted to do as much as they could to make his sacrifice in joining the military easier on the kids.

So, when she learned the Utah County-based Operation Keep in Touch was trying to help other military families by installing webcams for free use in public libraries, Taylor jumped on board.

"[Brent] just wants to see his kids and see them laugh and see their little faces," she said, "and we just want to make it more accessible for more people."

Operation Keep in Touch started with Pleasant Grove resident Kraig Thorne, who donated webcams to his public library in February, and has since expanded to libraries across Utah County, Cache County, Salt Lake County and, recently, Davis County.

Thorne, a senior vice commander for the Veterans of Foreign Wars' District 4, served two tours in the early 1990s patrolling South Korea's demilitarized zone. He was single at the time, but remembers seeing the strain on his fellow soldiers when they couldn't stay in contact with their spouses.

While the cost of a phone call is cheaper now, about $5 a minute to reach Iraq, Thorne said, "that's still quite a chunk of change for a phone call."

So Thorne decided that $50 for a webcam would go a lot further.

"The people enjoy them, and it's been a great help to a lot of families," he said, "especially families who don't have enough money to buy a computer of their own, and also Internet access."

By putting webcams in libraries as opposed to giving them to individual families, Thorne said, the donations can stay in use longer than one soldier's tour.

The five webcams donated to the Davis County Library System will go to the Syracuse, Clearfield, Layton, Centerville and Bountiful branches. The webcams are being hooked up to laptops to allow families to step into closed rooms - "give a little more privacy to people," said Library Director Chris Sanford.

She said equipment is being tested to ensure it works, but once the system is up and running, Sanford expects it to be a big benefit to the community.

"Because of our close proximity to Hill Air Force Base, a lot of our patrons are military personnel," she said. "We felt that this was an opportunity to provide a service to military personnel and their dependents that would allow them to communicate more effectively when someone is oversees and out of the house."

Those webcam visits offer the families a small respite, said Taylor, the North Ogden mom - "just for a minute, Dad's no longer a million miles away."

mariav@sltrib.com