His wife, Sara, was about to give birth to their first son, and Blake Brown was 9,000 miles away in the Somali Peninsula, doing Uncle Sam's work.

It would be an exhausting trip home, even for a soldier hardened by wearing body armor in searing African summers.

Brown was to go from Camp Le Monier in Djibouti to Ethiopia. Fly to Paris, then to Dallas, on to Phoenix and, finally, a short leg home to Fresno. Expected time: 36 hours, including layovers.

His plane landed late in Phoenix the night of April 2.

Brown rushed to the gate for US Airways flight 2716, only to find it closed.

Would he miss the birth of their first son?

Brown, dressed in uniform, asked the agent whether he somehow could get on the plane -- which had left the terminal and was headed to the runway.

The agent radioed the pilot.

The jet returned.

When an elated Brown entered the cabin, passengers stood and clapped for the 24-year-old Army specialist.

"It was kind of embarrassing," says Brown, a Bullard High graduate. "But I was very proud. It was nice to know that Americans haven't forgotten about us."

Brown was with Sara the next day when Conner was born about noon via C-section at Clovis Community Hospital.

And everybody's doing fine.

"It's nice being here with my family and talking about normal things," says Brown, who hadn't been home in nine months.

The pilot didn't have to come back for Brown, delaying the flight by about 25 minutes, but he did.

It was the kind of choice a mom might might have made. In fact, it's exactly the kind of choice Brown's mother, Charlotte, always has made.

She has taught English at Fresno High since 1985 and says, "I love teenagers. I can't wait to get there every day."

When Blake was younger, she was a soccer mom, organizing trips and fundraisers. And, when he enlisted after a year at Fresno Pacific University, she joined the Central Valley Blue Star Moms, a nonprofit helping military personnel and their families. She's now the membership director.

"The minute he enlisted, I needed some kind of support organization," Charlotte says. "Co-workers are empathetic to a point. But when your child is deployed overseas or in a war zone, you need to talk to another mother.

"Plus, God forbid, [should] anything happen to him, where's my support system? These women have been through it and can guide me, and I can guide other women."

Charlotte and her husband, Richard, always figured that Blake would serve in the military. He ran around in camouflage outfits as a kid and talked of becoming a police officer -- which he plans to be after leaving the Army.

Richard is a former Army man and, like Blake, trained at Fort Sill in Oklahoma. When Blake finished basic, mom and dad attended the ceremony.

"It was a tremendous bond for them being trained at the same place," Charlotte says.

In his two-plus years of service, Blake has seen a whole lot of Africa, where the American mission is to detect and defeat terrorist groups such as al-Qaida and to assist villagers and tribe members.

"It's not so much of a war," says Brown, a search-and-rescue specialist. "The stance is more helping Africans solve African problems. We're helping them to help themselves. It's really rewarding."

Blake says that the Americans teach the locals to care for their cows, for example. But it's also very much a war in that American soldiers protect Africans against terrorists and warring local armies. And things are really hot in Somalia, where pirates took an American ship captain hostage in open seas last week.

Says Charlotte: "With all the headlines right now about Somalia, his coming home is a miracle."

Just like the passengers and crew of Flight 2716, people throughout the Valley haven't forgotten about Blake and others in Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa.

Fresno Girl Scout Troop 150 recently sent 400 boxes of cookies overseas. The boxes were donated by people buying cookies during the Scouts' annual drive. For the past two years, Micah Johnson, owner of Cigars Ltd., has shipped cigars to the troops donated by himself and customers. The Blue Star Moms send packages of personal items.

The gifts from home are much appreciated.

"We don't have those type of luxuries in Africa," Blake says. "When the cigars came, we had a great time. You forget about the stress of the day."