This precious moment during a troop’s homecoming ceremony moved everyone in attendance to tears. ❤️
Rules are irrelevant when it comes to love. Particularly when it involves spending time with loved ones.
At least, so believes 2-year-old Karis Oglesby.
Unconcerned with protocol, she ran out during the middle of an Army homecoming ceremony to greet her father.
At the homecoming ceremony at Fort Carson, Colorado, the father of Karis and his fellow soldiers stood arm-in-arm in formation.
Karis hadn’t seen her dad in eight months.
All of the uniformed men and women had left their families in exchange for a paycheck and a position in the army.
Instead of embracing their family members, who had also made sacrifices in their absence, protocol required them to stare at them in silence while a superior addressed the crowd over the loudspeaker.
However, Karis had no time for any of that.
She spotted her father and was so overjoyed to see him that she ran past a superior officer and into her father’s arms.
“Cara, she made eye contact with me in the crowd and decided she wanted to say hello a little early so she ran up and gave me a big hug and I just returned the hug back to her,” her father First Lt. Daniel Oglesby said.
Karis greatly missed her father and could not wait to give him a big hug.
“She was excited. She spotted me from a couple of rows back. She couldn’t contain herself, and I wasn’t going to tell her no. Happy to see her,” dad told news reporters.
Dad did have to ponder the situation twice.
He stated that he had to determine whether or not “breaking formation was good practice.”
He never determined what constitutes or does not constitute good practice.
He simply tossed it to the wind.
Oglesby lacked the compassion to refrain from hugging his daughter.
Consequently, he bent down and gave her a hug and a kiss on the forehead.
He gave her one last squeeze before convincing her to rejoin her family.
Karis ran back to her mother and leapt into her arms as she approached.
It was a happy reunion for the family, including the young girl who couldn’t wait to hug her father.
The father returned just in time to celebrate his daughter’s third birthday.
The local news captured the hilarious moment and uploaded it to their Facebook page, where it has been viewed more than 5.1 million times.
“It is so beautiful, So glad bless her heart, so innocent, Just want to see her Dad,” one commenter wrote.
“Take any soldier. He or she is out there to protect many families. What about a soldier’s family then? Go ahead girl, your Dad is a hero for all and an angel for you. Cuddle him and say thank you for coming home,” said another.