A Navy Dad Back From Ukraine Brought Pokémon Cards, the Correct Lunchroom Currency

Luke Vassighi was eating lunch at Campus Middle School in Greenwood Village, Colorado, when his father walked into the cafeteria. Luke’s first reaction to seeing his dad after nearly a year was to tell him he wasn’t there.

“It’s not you...” the sixth grader said, according to CBS News Colorado. His dad answered that it was, and picked him up in a bear hug.²

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Vassighi had spent 11 months deployed to Ukraine with a security assistance group. He got back to Colorado two days before the Friday surprise.²

Reunions like this have become a familiar kind of story, and they keep landing anyway. For a military family, a deployment means most of a year of school days, birthdays and ordinary dinners happening with one parent on the other side of the world.

Eleven months of waiting

Before the reunion, Vassighi described how much he had been looking forward to it.

“It’s been a long deployment. Nearly 11 months without seeing the kiddos, and I just can’t wait to wrap my arms around them,” he told CBS News Colorado.²

He gave the credit for holding things together at home to Luke’s mom, who cared for Luke and his brother while he was away.² “I know that he’s in really good hands with his mom, so I have that reassurance,” he told the station.²

A cafeteria surprise

According to the Cherry Creek School District, both father and son were visibly emotional, and Luke was in complete shock.³ Principal Kellie Carroll welcomed Vassighi home on behalf of the school.³

“I’ll never forget this moment for as long as I live,” Vassighi said in the district’s post.³

He did not show up empty-handed. Vassighi brought Luke a stack of Pokémon cards, which in a middle school lunchroom is roughly the equivalent of arriving with gold bars. The district said the two planned to spend the rest of the day together, starting with lunch at Red Robin.³ That made it the rare school day with two lunches, and the second one came with a dad across the table.

From Colorado to the national news

The reunion first aired on CBS News Colorado.² A few days later, Tony Dokoupil shared it with a national audience in a short segment for CBS Evening News.¹

The video runs one minute and 41 seconds. For one family in Greenwood Village, it’s the minute and 41 seconds after 11 months apart.¹