It was a moment right out of the movies. After serving a four-year tour of duty as a strategic planner in Kuwait, Major Leonardo Reeder was reunited with his son Gavin, a fourth-grader at McKee Road Elementary. And Gavin had no idea.

Just before lunchtime, the secret that teachers and administrators had been keeping from Gavin and his classmates walked through the door of room C-5 in full uniform and hugged his son. The class erupted, and with good reason. All year long, Gavin had been talking about the day his father would come home. He talked about it so much that classmates felt like they knew his father. At Christmas, every member of Gavin’s class sent Major Reeder greeting cards, which he remembered reading fondly.

“I remember being on the phone with Gavin and him saying, ‘Yo, go check your mailbox!’” said Major Reeder. “I don’t remember all the names, but it sure did brighten up the holidays.”

After the initial reunion the Reeders stood in front of the class, the elder answering students’ questions, the younger taking it all in. Major Reeder recounted what it was like to eat the exact same food every week for four years, telling students that “every Friday was Seafood Friday. Every Thursday was Mongolian Night.” He then described the smothering experience of huddling down during a Kuwaiti dust storm.

The students were full of questions and, after graciously answering each one of them, Major Reeder produced a knapsack that was full of gifts for Gavin’s classmates. He presented the students with copies of Operation New Dawn – a short photobook about the end of the war in Iraq – and special Army challenge coins.

“If I could say one thing to all of you,” Major Reeder said before he left, “it would be to appreciate your teachers and principals here at McKee Road Elementary. Where I was, some kids don’t make it to fifth or sixth grade because they don’t have the resources, [or] the people around them. Don’t forget how good you have it here.”

After the question-answer session, after the photo-ops and the local TV news interview, the Reeders quietly exited the classroom to spend, as Major Reeder put it, “some father-son time.” As the pair left, Gavin’s class – and the class next door – burst into applause in thanks for this soldier’s doing his duty, and in celebration of this son’s reunion with his father.