Air Force dad returns from deployment, surprises 10-year-old son at school

AUSTINTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) – You see the videos all the time on social media and it never gets old — troops reunited with their families. Now one local man and his family are back together in a surprise that left their 10-year-old son speechless.

Theron Eaglen hasn’t seen his dad in 269 days — until now.

“Just walking to the classroom, my heart was racing because I didn’t know what to expect,” said U.S. Air Force Technical Sargeant Michael Eaglen.

Michael just wrapped up his third deployment. This tour of duty was in southeast Asia.

Despite landing on U.S. soil Thursday night, he still had one more mission to complete — surprising his son at Austintown Intermediate School on Friday afternoon.

“I was counting down the days from about 100,” Michael said.

Theron’s in fourth grade but Austintown is his sixth school — he’s been enrolled there since January.

TSgt. Eaglen, a Valley native along with his wife, is stationed in South Dakota but his family is here, taking care of a family member.

Since going back to the classroom, dad and son have only spoken on the weekends because of the time difference.

“If I couldn’t call back home and talk to him, I don’t know what I would’ve done. I probably would’ve gone crazy,” Michael said. “There’s video chat apps that have games you can play. We were doing that just about every weekend.”

TSgt. Eaglen has spent 13 years in the Air Force and is no stranger to handling sensitive information. But keeping this mission top-secret was his most difficult duty to date.

“I think I almost slipped and I had to resort back to sometime in October,” he said.

With mom Anna and baby sister Eda in tow, it didn’t hit home that dad was returning home until he was walking into the classroom.

“I didn’t expect to be emotional. I’ve dealt with deployment returns multiple times now, I should be used to it. Ten years old is a lot different than when he was a toddler and didn’t know any different,” Anna said.

Now carrying the weight of keeping the big secret is off of everyone’s shoulders.

“The last month is always — it feels like the slowest month because you’re almost there, but you still have a month to go,” Michael said.

Theron says he’s excited to get back to South Dakota and dad let it slip that there’s a trip to an indoor waterpark in their near future.

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