Marine surprises mom with early return

ROUND ROCK, Texas (KXAN) - The surprise attack was planned with military precision.

Father and son arrange to meet. Then they join forces to move in on their target.

So who was the unsuspecting target?

Vicky Sulaica, the mother of Marine Lance Cpl. Fabian Baca. The Marine who just returned from Afghanistan and his dad, Pablo Sulaicca, surprised Vicky at Round Rock High School, where she works as a counselor. She knew her son was coming him, she just didn't know it would be on Tuesday.

• Photos of the reunion

"You know it really wasn't my idea," said Pablo before the reunion. "It was his doing. We were actually going to surprise him this weekend and that's what she still thinks is going to happen so she has no idea this is getting ready to go down."

As a Marine, Fabian Baca is used to carrying out plans of action. But this time, after spending seven months on a tour if duty in Afghanistan, few action plans more meaningful than the one that led to surprising his mom three days earlier than she was expecting.

"Oh my gosh!"  Vicky said when she set her eyes on her son. "So happy to see him. You just don't know. This is real now. He's here."

A surprise meeting that took a lot of planning, said Pablo. "I told him, you have to stay under wraps you can't go anywhere see anybody do anything but it was hard because he had a lot of friends and family wanting to see him."

Baca got back home in time to see the birth of his second son and for mom likely a work day she'll never forget for the rest of her life. He said the plan that worked out like it was drawn up.

"Everybody kept their story to it where they needed to be and got here and got it done," he said.