First Sgt. Vince Heller’s early return shocks his kids

First Sgt. Vincent Heller received a hero’s welcome in triplicate on March 1.
   “Dad!” Gus Heller exclaimed, as he jumped from his desk in English class to hug his dad.   
“What are you doing here!” fifth grader Marigny Heller, 11, screamed and then embraced her dad.
   “How you doing, sweet pea?” Heller responded.
  
“Is that my daddy?” 8-year-old second grader Jack quizzically asked under his breath as he looked past his teacher on the playground and saw his dad standing behind his mother. He couldn’t run to him fast enough. His classmates yelled, “Welcome Home!”

Walking from one classroom to the next at Holy Name of Jesus School Uptown on his first day home from active duty, First Sgt. Heller surprised all three of his children with an early homecoming. 
Dad hatched the plan
   Since August, Sgt. Heller has been in the Republic of Georgia training the Georgian Army to assist the Afghan National Army now that the U.S. is in a drawdown mode from Afghanistan. It was his third deployment since he enlisted as a U.S. Marine Reservist in 1985. His first deployment was to Iraq in 1990, two months after he got married.
   “It was their dad’s idea to surprise the kids,” Sherry Heller, Vince Heller’s wife,  said. “He didn’t want anybody to know. We talked to the school to make it happen.”
   “I thought it would be a neat thing to make the focus on them and not me,” Sgt. Heller said.
 
  Sherry Heller had to keep a secret for a month, communicating by email and Skype. Only about two weeks before, when he landed stateside, did she definitely know he was coming home on her 46th birthday March 1.                                 “It’s been the hardest thing to keep from y’all,” Sherry Heller told 13-year-old Gus as they walked to surprise Marigny.  “I’ve known for a month and haven’t said anything.”
Can’t believe he’s home
   It’s been an emotional few months for the children, having last seen their father in Germany over the Christmas holidays. They didn’t expect his return home until the summer.
   Eileen Geeck, Gus’ seventh-grade English writing teacher, said Gus has kept to himself about his dad being away but chose to write about him in a bio cube assignment about an immediate family member he admires.
   “It was really surprising,” Gus, 13, said about his dad coming home. While walking with him and his sister, Marigny, to surprise his younger brother, the reality of having his dad home sunk in.
    “So are you going to the fish fry tonight?” Gus asked his dad. “Quite possibly,” Sgt. Heller told his son.
   Sherry Heller said Gus was in Holy Name’s pre-kindergarten class when her husband was deployed to Iraq in 2003, and now he is graduating from seventh grade at Holy Name on this third tour. “You have to be flexible when you’re a Marine family,” Sherry Heller said.
   Marigny, who enjoys listening to Jimmy Buffet and Elvis Presley music with her father, was overwhelmed seeing her father. She hopes – now that he’s home during the summer – that he can coach her softball team.
   “I was so surprised,” Marigny said. “I didn’t know he was coming home early. I was happy to see him. “
   Jack Heller told a television crew from WWL-TV that he missed his daddy’s belly kisses most of all.
   Vince Heller is the parent “that makes them laugh,” Sherry Heller said.
   While this deployment was not as emotionally wrenching as the others since he wasn’t in direct combat, “it’s not the same as having him here,” Sherry Heller said. 
   Over the years, Sgt. Heller has missed a few milestones in his children’s lives such as first Communions and even a Dad and Darling dance with Marigny, but he considers his job as a Marine to be important, following in the footsteps of his parran Anthony Miranti, who was a World War II veteran.
   “It inspired me,” he said of Miranti, who used to ask him every time he saw him – “What did you do good for your country today?” “It was a very prideful moment for me to go to his house and tell him I had joined the Marines.”
It takes courage
   He says having an active U.S. military is critical.
   “It has impressed me to see the caliber of young men and women who join,” he said. “Anybody who has joined over the past 10 years knew what they were getting into (combat).”
   Sgt. Heller is with the Weapons Company, Third Battalion, 23rd Marines. While stationed in the Republic of Georgia, he and approximately 20 others did a community outreach at an orphanage there.
   He said he’s glad to be home and is so grateful to Holy Name for allowing him to carry out the surprise and for being so supportive with meals and other things while he has been gone.
   “I love being part of the Holy Name community,” Sgt. Heller said. “They offer a lot of support.”
   He has orders to report to Baton Rouge until mid-May. The Hellers will wait to see what happens after that.
            Christine Bordelon can be reached at [email protected].