Lt. Col. John Palo with son Aiden.
Sumter County, SC (WLTX) -- Imagine spending a day, week, month or year without your loved one.
Each day service men and women put their lives on the line to protect our country sometimes from thousands of miles away, but it's not everyday one gets to surprise his or her child with an unexpected return.
That's what Lt. Col. John Palo got to do Friday morning, even though the surprise grew beyond what he first expected.
"My plan was just to walk into his classroom," said Palo, before the surprise. He expected to return sometime in March.
Since August 2011, he's lived in Qatar, thousands of miles away from wife Angie and 6-year-old son Aiden.
Aiden's school, Oakland Primary in Sumter County, set up a celebration to reward students for reading more than 7,000 books.
During the assembly, Aiden sat in the front row, with no idea his father would be the assembly's surprise guest.
Aiden was speechless at his father entered the room and crossed to pick up his son.
Angie Palo watched the reunion with tears in her eyes, saying since she became a mother the homecomings have been about her son.
Now, Angie and Aiden can call off their reunion countdown, eating one m&m a day from daddy's homecoming jar.
"We counted on a 6 month deployment so we did 180 m&ms in a jar for him and 180 for me and then we ate one each day and watched the jar go down, that's kind of a 6-year-old's view of deployment," said Angie.
Now with his father home and about a month's worth of candy left, Aiden knows just what to do with the extra.
"I'm gonna eat all of them today!" he said smiling.
That plan sounds good to his parents, and though they've through deployment's before, the family reunion makes it all worth while.
"It's like being a kid at Christmas, you're just incredibly excited, but yea it doesn't get old at all," said Lt. Col. John Palo.
A shy and quiet Aiden on the other hand has grown older and lost a few teeth while his father's been away.
But you can count in kisses, his love for his father.