Nine months is a long time in anyone’s life - but when you’re only three and you haven’t seen your mum in all that time, it’s like a lifetime.
Which is why little Cooper Waldvogel ignores military protocol to lamp it across a crowded hall and into his mum’s arms after she returns from a tour of duty in Afghanistan.
Kathryn Waldvogel, 25, said: “He just kept smiling like he was in awe of me...I was longing to hold him, that's all that I thought about.”
She and her fellow soldiers were standing in line waiting to be dismissed after their first sergeant told them to file into the auditorium and they would be dismissed shortly. They were told not to greet family members until they were dismissed, because it would take too long.
Well, having waited nine months, a few minutes more was just too long for Cooper. In surely the biggest “aaaah” moment in military history (carried away? Us?), he flings himself into his mammy’s arms and holds on tight.
A KARE-TV photographer captured the moment and the station posted it to Facebook, writing “This is an awesome moment. A toddler doesn't care about military procedures, standing in formation, or anything else: Not when his mom has just returned from 9 months in Afghanistan.”
Tissues!
H/T: USA Today.