A christmas like no other

Alyssa Pietruszka a junior at Arrowhead was reunited with her father after ten months apart. For the last ten months, Rob Pietruszka was stationed over in Afghanistan. On Tuesday, the 16th of December, Rob Pietruszka was able to surprise both Alyssa and Tyler at their schools.
In the Army, Pietruszka  was part of the National Guard where he worked the Field Artillery. He was a staff Sergeant with a rank of an E-6.

On March 2nd,  Pietruszka left to go to Afghanistan, where he has spent the last 10 months.

“I was able to talk to him over the phone. He has tried doing Skype, but that never really worked out. Since there is a time zone change, we always talked to him later at night which would be morning for him in Afghanistan,” says Alyssa Pietruszka.

Since he wasn’t supposed to return until March of 2014, Alyssa accepted that her family would be spending this Christmas without her father. But Alyssa was unaware that her father was in fact in the country for the past month.

Her mother, grandparents and some of the staff including psychology teacher Chris Herriot knew that Tuesday the 16th was when Alyssa would finally be reunited with her father.

Alyssa was in her eigth hour psychology class, when Pietruszka walked in handing her a bouquet of flowers.  The two embraced and tears were shed throughout the class.

They then left Arrowhead and went to her brother Tyler’s school Hartland South Elementary.

The teachers brought two third grade classes into the meeting room where he teachers  explained to the classes that real superheroes existed.

This is when Mr. Pietruszka walked in and surprised Tyler. Like his sister, Tyler was stunned, he stood up and tackled his dad giving him a huge hug. The teacher proceeded to tell the classes Pietruszka was a real life superhero.

“I couldn’t believe it. At first i thought it couldn’t be him, that it was a cardboard cut out,” says Alyssa Pietruszka.

“It made my day and my week,” says Cristina Betancourt.

Senior Cristina Betancourt was taken aside from her senior study hall class on Thursday the 11th of December and told that her psychology classmate Alyssa Pietruszka was going to be surprised by her father the following tuesday. Betancourt was told to videotape the event.  She was given strict instructions not to tell anybody.

“ It was very emotional, I was so happy for her. It was hard to hold back the tears when her father walked in, it made my day and my week.” Says Betancourt

‘It was a really special moment that I will never forget.” Says Alyssa Pietruszka