These Fort Worth students shed tears at school — and it wasn’t over bad grades

One of the first stops Sgt. John Torres made when he returned to Fort Worth from a nine-month deployment was a surprise visit to Waverly Park Elementary.

Once there, he scooped three of his children into his arms on Monday.

“This is the first time I ever came to surprise them like this, so it is pretty nice,” Torres said in a news release. “It was pretty good. It was exciting to see their faces.

“It almost broke me, but I held strong.”

Torres serves in the U.S. Army National Guard. He has three children who attend Waverly Park — a first grader, second grader and fifth grader. Torres also has a seventh-grade student at Leonard Middle School.

Torres has been deployed five times, according to the Fort Worth school district. He served tours in Iraq, Afghanistan and Korea and was recently stationed in Cuba where he worked in a clinic.

Torres’ wife, Rebecca, said in the news release that the children missed their father being around.

“They’ve been asking, ‘When is he coming home? When is he coming home?” she told the school district.

This story was originally published September 11, 2018 at 1:01 PM.