Chris Fulton made his daughters’ day when he appeared at their school after almost a year of Middle East deployment. Fulton has been in the U.S. Army for almost 20 years. He was sent overseas for the first time in 2009 during Operation Freedom and again in 2020–2021.
Nearly a year ago, he was deployed to the Middle East but he is back home. Reflecting on his deployment, he told KNXV, “The hardest part [was] leaving my family for a year at a time. That’s brutal.”
This time, after his deployment, Fulton decided to surprise his kids, Layla and Lana, who attend Gilbert Elementary School in Arizona. The school supported Fulton in this endeavor.
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Fulton went to meet his girls at Gilbert Elementary on Monday. He stood behind the stage curtain during lunchtime at the school and was unveiled to the children, including his cherished daughters, following an announcement by the principal.
Fulton told the network before the reunion, “I don’t know; hopefully the first thing I don’t do is cry, but that just might happen.”
As soon as the girls saw Fulton, they ran to the platform and gave their dad an embrace while sobbing.
Fulton’s wife, Jordan, expressed her thoughts on her husband’s career and the long deployments, saying, “It’s a necessary sacrifice. It’s hard, you know, for all of us involved, but someone has to do it.”
