6-Year-Old Boy Walks to His U.S. Marine Father for the First Time

When US Marine Staff Sgt. Jeremy Cooney was deployed to Afghanistan last year, he left behind his wife and children, one of whom was born with cerebral palsy and couldn't walk.

Little did Cooney know that, over the next seven months, his six-year-old son Matthew would learn to walk on his own, ABC News reports.

Cooney's wife Melissa kept her son's progress a secret for the duration of her husband's deployment so that when he finally returned home, he would be welcomed with the gift of a lifetime.The boy’s mother, Melissa Cooney, elaborated upon the incident on WelcomeHomeBlog.com where she stated:“When my husband left on his deployment, our 6-year-old son could not walk on his own. He has cerebral palsy. Doctors originally said that he would never walk or do much of anything. While daddy was away, he learned to walk. For his homecoming, we set it up for Michael to walk to his daddy for the first time ever! We kept the fact that he could walk a secret the whole time his dad was gone!”