Alex Gets His Dad Back

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by Allan Appel | Oct 28, 2011 3:27 pm

(3) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author

Allan Appel Photo Second-grader Alex was celebrating his school’s gifts to American armed forces serving abroad, when in walked a surprise gift for him from overseas—his soldier dad, back from Korea.

The happy reunion took place Friday afternoon at the John C. Daniels school. Students and teachers gathered in the school’s auditorium for an assembly focusing on Soldiers’ Angels, a North-Carolina based organization to which the school is donating items to American soldiers far from home.

The assembly had been scheduled since September 11th, when Daniels as a school pledged to spend the entire semester collecting donations.

Every day, kids have brought in canned goods like tuna fish and peanut butter, along with granola, toothbrushes, and skin care products, which are important for those serving under the hot sun in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What was not scheduled, and kept as a surprise for Alex, was the arrival of his dad Nehemias from his U.S. Army service in Korea.

(For personal reasons, the family requested Nehemias not be photographed from the front or for the family’s last name to be used).

At 11:30 Friday morning, Alex’s mom picked up her husband from the JFK airport in New York. They then went directly to the school, where 300 kids were assembled.

Nehemias said that after a huge hug Alex’s first words were, “You lied. You said you’d be home for Christmas.”

In fact he was home in time for Halloween. Father and son had not seen each other in four months. Nehemias is on a four-day leave en route to Fort Hood in Texas from Korea. He said he believes his next deployment will be Iraq or Afghanistan.

But Friday was a time for celebration and for planning what to do for the next four days.

As reporters and news crews crowded about, Alex said that he and his dad were going to watch the World Series finale Friday night.

Nehemias was raised in New Haven, a graduate of Wilbur Cross High, where he played left field on the baseball team.

Asked for which team he would be rooting, Alex looked at his father. His father looked at Alex. Father whispered to son. A decision was made: Texas. After all, the father is to be stationed at Fort Hood in the Lone Star State.

The association between Daniels and Soldiers’ Angels was initiated by Daniels science teachers Bill Johnson and Karina Woltke, who has a son serving in Germany.

The school’s collected donations will be sent to a Soldiers’ Angels warehouse in North Carolina. Bill Johnson said the school has also committed to “adopting” two soldiers to whom kids will write letters and send products not usually available at base stores.

Nehemias will be one of those, Johnson said. A second “adoptee” soldier has not been selected.

According to Daniels’ Principal Gina Wells, the school has about four or five families with a member serving overseas.

Schools’ spokesman Chris Hoffman said he could not estimate how many families systemwide in the New Haven Public Schools have a father or mother serving in the military.

The school’s Soldiers Angels collection campaign culminates on November 9th, just before Veterans’ Day, with another assembly. By then Nehemias will be in Fort Hood awaiting his next deployment.

Comments

posted by: RL on October 28, 2011 7:53pm

This is so nice!! Finally some good news!

posted by: Kells on October 29, 2011 2:58pm

This is a great story! We need more of them!!

posted by: Gary highsmith on October 30, 2011 10:49am

Very nice story. This is the first time I have seen this type of service person surprising their children story that involved an African-American soldier. Nicely done.

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