Soldier's visit with family "like a dream"

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November 11, 2009

Misty Watson The Dalton Daily Citizen Wed Nov 11, 2009, 07:08 PM EST

Connie Pulliam was afraid there was some kind of problem when she was called into the principal’s office on Wednesday.

The special education teacher at Spring Place Elementary School in Murray County didn’t know a surprise awaited her in the closet in Emma Long’s office.

Long kept a stern demeanor as she began talking to Pulliam. Out in the hallway several teachers and other staff crowded near Long’s office to hear and see what was going on.

Soon Pulliam’s son — whom she believed to be serving with the Dalton-based Charlie Troop in Afghanistan — emerged from the closet.

Pulliam clutched her son, Chris, for several minutes.

“It’s like a dream,” she said. “I can’t believe it.”

Chris Pulliam, who was deployed with the Georgia Army National Guard in March, returned home on leave for a couple of weeks on Wednesday. He and his brother, Luke, and sister, Leslie, conspired on Facebook to keep his homecoming a secret from their mother and father, James.

“I figured it would be more special to mom if I came and surprised her,” said Chris Pulliam, a 25-year-old, 2002 Murray County High School graduate, who also attended Spring Place Elementary. He works for Norfolk Southern Railroad when he’s not on active duty.

The Pulliam family was greeted by several students who lined the hall from the office to Connie Pulliam’s classroom with signs and flags. At the end of the hall, Reba Howard’s fourth-graders were chanting “Welcome home, Christopher.”

Chris Pulliam didn’t know the students and faculty would go to such great lengths.

“It was impressive,” he said. “It’s an awesome feeling to know these students are thinking of us.”

James Pulliam, who had been taken to the school without knowing why he was going, said he is glad his son had such a warm homecoming. James Pulliam had served in the military during the 1970s when many soldiers were not welcomed home. He was stationed in Korea at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) during that time.

“This is the best thing that could ever happen,” James Pulliam said. “It was a total surprise. It’s the last thing I would ever have thought in the world ... I said today that I wouldn’t get to see him until February.”

Chris Pulliam said he can’t say where in Afghanistan he is stationed, but he and his fellow soldiers are police mentors.

“It’s nothing like I expected at all,” he said. “We are welcomed there. We’re able to work with the people there.”

Chris Pulliam has been a member of the Army National Guard for eight years, but this is his first deployment.

He said the thing he has missed most while being overseas is his family. He plans to spend a lot of time with them before returning to Afghanistan, adding “we’ll all be home soon.”

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Soldier's visit with family "like a dream"

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