Patrick T. Fallon/AP Photo

While many families attended the 2013 Rose Parade in Pasadena, Calif.,  on New Year’s Day, military wife Miriam Pazz wished her husband could join her and their 4-year-old son in the stands.

What Pazz didn’t know was that her husband, Army Sgt. First Class Eric Pazz, was hidden on a nearby parade float and about to give them the best possible start to the New Year.

Miriam Pazz had been told she had won a contest to attend the parade and did not know her husband, who is deployed in Afghanistan, would be there.

“My husband just entered his name, I guess. I just got a call letting me know that we won,” Pazz said moments before the surprise reunion.

Spectators rose to a standing ovation when Army Sgt. First Class Eric Pazz, who was riding on the Natural Balance Pet Foods float along with other service members, got off the float and walked over to his surprised wife and son Eric Jr.

The family immediately lunged out of the stands and embraced the 32-year-old soldier, who was away from his family for seven months. Pazz handed his wife a red rose.

“It was a really great experience,” said Pazz. “First thing I thought was, ‘I hope she’s not going to slap me for lying to her.’ After that, seeing our son’s face, how he reacted, I was really caught up into the moment.”

Pazz is a highly decorated soldier who has also served in Iraq. The family, who currently lives in Germany, climbed aboard the float for the rest of the five-mile parade route.

We were introduced to U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Josh Ricafrente in November through a viral video of a surprise on-field reunion with his sons at an East Carolina University football game following his latest deployment to Afghanistan.

Today, we revisited the heartwarming reunion on “Good Morning America,” and our audience voted to crown it the “GMA” Play of the Year video in a landslide victory.

“It’s a shocker to me,” Ricafrente told ABCNews.com today when he learned of the news. “I was telling my boss, I didn’t know it was going to go as viral as it did. I was shocked when y’all played it on ‘GMA’ the first time around. All my friends were like, ‘Oh man, you made national news.’”

He added, “I’m glad that people still appreciate what we do. That makes me feel good.”

On Nov. 3, Ricafrente’s sons, 10-year-old Noah, and 8-year-old Elijah, got to go onto the field during halftime at the East Carolina football game to try out their football skills. But they had no idea their dad,  Ricafrente, a 12-year service veteran who had been deployed in Afghanistan for the past five months, would be there in person to give them the surprise of their lives.

“I was talking to my wife and said it’d be cool if I could surprise the kids at the ECU game,” Ricafrente told ABCNews.com in November.

“My wife did all of the communicating until I got back, and then they just told me where I needed to be,” he said. “I just thought it was going to be fun to do, but ECU made it reality.”

Noah, who was 9 months old when his father deployed the first time, and Elijah, who wasn’t even born then, thought their dad would be returning home in December, just in time for the holidays.

Instead, they watched their dad on the stadium’s big screen in a taped message right before the halftime contest began and then saw him “live” just moments after.

“Everybody started crying,” he said of the crowd in the stands. “Everybody screamed, and I heard in the background they were chanting ‘USA,’ and I thought that was pretty cool.”

Ricafrente hasn’t told his sons their video won the “GMA” Play of the Year video contest.

“I haven’t told them yet. They’re at school. We’re going Christmas shopping right now, but I’m sure when they find out they’ll be thrilled,” he said.

ABC News’ Katie Kindelan contributed to this report.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

Nothing is sweeter than seeing a soldier or sailor reunited with their family after a long deployment overseas. Embracing each other for the first time can often be a very intimate moment for these families, and one that some service members plan well in advance, making sure to give their loved ones a giant and welcome surprise.

In many cases, it’s the first time the entire family has been together in months, perhaps even years. We’ve rounded up the top 7 surprise military homecomings caught on camera in 2012.

Marine Surprises Sons at East Carolina Football Game

When Josh Ricafrente, a gunnery sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps, walked out onto the Dowdy-Fricklen football field during the Nov. 3 East Carolina University game after his latest deployment to Afghanistan, he gave his sons, ten-year-old Noah and eight-year-old Elijah, the surprise of their lives.

Navy Reservist Returns, Surprises Son as Darth Vader

Navy Reservist Justin Whyte, 33, of Wichita, Kan., dressed up as Darth Vader to surprise his 5-year-old son for his “Star Wars”-themed birthday party after an intense light saber battle.

Santa Delivers Dad to Soldier’s Kids in Surprise Package

Staff Sgt. Joshua Durrer, 31, of Glendale, Ariz., surprised his kids by popping out of a Christmas present delivered by Santa.

Soldier Surprises Family at South Carolina Football Game

Army Sgt. 1st Class Scott Faile returned from South Korea, after completing his third tour of duty,  to surprise his family on the South Carolina Gamecock’s football field. At a pregame ceremony they were honored as the Columbia Metropolitan Airport’s “Military Family of the Game.”

Soldier’s Homecoming Comes Wrapped for Her Son

Just home from Kuwait, Army Capt. Anne Scott surprised her son, Tyler, a 3rd grader at Deibler Elementary School in Perkasie, Pa.

Soldier’s Homecoming Brings Son to Tears

Petty Officer James Ellis shocked his children with his surprise return from Afghanistan as part of a Veterans Day celebration coordinated by their elementary school in Andrews, N.C.

Family Surprises Soldier During Live ‘GMA’ Interview

A “Christmas miracle” came true on “Good Morning America” Dec. 14 when  U.S. Army Capt. Gerardo Garcia was reunited with his family, live on the air, after nearly a year away in Afghanistan.

As part of our Standing Up For Heroes series, we paired 25-year-old Marine Corp veteran Wesley Olivo with mentor and financial expert Mellody Hobson, president of Ariel Investments.  Olivo served two tours in Iraq and hopes to become a CEO or CFO one day.  He has a 3.5 GPA and is working full-time toward a degree in accounting at Robert Morris University in Chicago. He sat down with Hobson earlier this month at her offices in Chicago to begin his education outside of the classroom.

In the time they spent together, Hobson offered a wealth of advice for achieving success in the financial field, but boiled it down these six key tips: 

1. Make Internships a Priority

Hobson noted that she began her own career with an internship, saying, “When people see that you have real-life experience, especially in the financial services industry.  It counts for a lot.  A lot of things that we do, it’s not about a textbook.  It’s about having good judgment.”

2. Utilize Professional Resources

Knowing that an internship is important is one thing, but finding a company to internship at is another important part of the career building process. Hobson suggested Olivo consult a resource such as Crain’s: Chicago Business for a list of top accounting firms in the region.

3. Ask Professors for 3 People to Network With

She also suggested Olivo capitalize on his professors’ past experience in the field of finance by asking them to recommend two or three people Olivo could meet with, noting, “People love to give free advice.  They love to,” especially when it is someone who has served our country and done great things.  “I certainly feel honored to meet you, especially given the context of what you have done for me and the freedom we have in America,” Hobson said.

4. When Networking, Prepare Ahead of Time

Hobson said that it is imperative to be very specific about how much time he is looking to spend with  a person, recommending he ask for 15 minutes. “Be very specific about what you are asking them, so you do all your research on the front end,” she said.  

5. Ask for Experience from Local Vendors

Hobson suggested Olivo look for hands-on work experience in places that might not be obvious. She suggested asking local businesses if they need help with book-keeping, telling Olivo to approach them by saying, “I just want the experience, and I can help out at a discounted price. And the only reason you are doing that, again, is to get the experience.”

6. Share Your Resume for Critique

“Have a couple people look at your resume,” said Hobson, adding that although details are important on every resume, they are extremely important in accounting.  One mistake could lead the recipient of the resume to think, “If the person has missed these details, what would happen to my books?”

After their meeting wrapped up, Hobson took Olivo on a tour of Ariel Investments, introducing him to employees and potential contacts along the way.

She offered him the chance to speak with Maureen Longoria, CFO of Ariel Investments, so he could get specific advice about breaking into and succeeding in the field of accounting.

Longoria suggested Olivo begin his career in public accounting.

“[It] gives you a good base, and then gives a feel of what type of corporate company you would like to work for, and then, depending on where you are in your career, you just advance your way up. … With accounting, as long as you are willing to work hard, work with people, try to do the best that you can, there’s lots of room for growth.”

Hobson and Olivo will remain in touch as he begins his search for an internship.

Two children got an extra special surprise from Santa delivered to their grandparents’ doorstep last Friday.

Andrew, 7, and Abby Durrer, 4, raced to the front door after the bell rang to find a huge, nearly 7-foot-tall wrapped present waiting outside for them.

Clutching the note he received from Santa the night before telling him he would be receiving an early present from Santa, Andrew began un-wrapping the large box only to find his dad, Staff Sergeant Josh Durrer,  popping out from inside.

“Oh, it was so precious, absolutely precious,” the children’s grandmother, Maureen Rehak, told ABCNews.com.  ”The kids did not know he was going to come home mid-tour for the holidays. We didn’t want to tell them because it’s just too hard to have Dad coming and going, so we just didn’t tell them at all.”

Jenn Durrer, Josh’s wife, had known since October that her husband would be returning home for the holidays, but she didn’t want to tell the children in case there was a change of plans.

“My mom and I were sitting around, and we knew Josh would be arriving late Thursday night. I said, ‘O.K., the kids will stay at your house.’ We wanted to make sure it was a surprise,” Jenn said. “My kids are just at the age where they love Christmas, and I really wanted to involve Santa.”

So Jenn’s father wrote a note to Andrew, from Santa Claus, explaining he did well in school this semester and listened to his mother while his father was away. Therefore, there would be an extra-special surprise waiting for him the very next day.

“Andrew had the death grip on that Santa note. When he walked out, he peeked around the corner to see if Santa was still there,” Jenn said.

But although Santa was long gone, heading back to the North Pole in his sleigh, his father was right there in front of him. The best Christmas surprise he could have asked for, delivered all the way from Korea, where Josh had been deployed on his most recent tour.

“It was fun for the kids,” said Jenn. “And Andrew’s got a renewed Christmas spirit. He thinks Santa Claus is just the biggest Christmas hero. He went back to school and was telling all the kids how Santa delivered his daddy to him for the holidays.”

And this Christmas in particular has a very special meaning to the family.

“It’s our first American Christmas. Both our kids were born overseas. It’s our first time being home, and it’s just neat that Josh was able to be home for our first time.”

For more “Standing up for Heroes” stories, click here.

A “Christmas miracle” came true on ” Good Morning America” today when a U.S. Army captain was reunited with his family after nearly a year away on deployment.

Capt. Gerardo Garcia has been deployed four times to Afghanistan. His most recent deployment kept him away from his family in California – wife Andrea and kids Marc, 10, Ali, 6, and Andres, 3 – for nearly a year.

While Garcia has been away fighting on the frontlines, Andrea Garcia has held down the fort at home, acting as a single parent while also going to school to obtain her nursing degree.

READ MORE: Navy Reservist Surprises Son at Home Dressed as Darth Vader

“Their dad’s a role model for them there and I need to be a role model for them here,” she told “GMA.” “It was important for me to go to school and better myself and they can see that mommy can make a difference while their dad’s gone.”

Although Andrea Garcia describes the situation as “hard,” the multitasking mom did find time to plan the surprise of a lifetime for her husband.

Capt. Garcia has been based at Ft. Huachuca in Cochise County, Ariz., since his return from Afghanistan. While he knew he’d be home for the holidays, his family decided to give him an early Christmas surprise by traveling to the base from their California home.

READ MORE: Soldier Surprises Family at South Carolina Football Game

Andrea Garcia and the couple’s children surprised Capt. Garcia on “GMA” while he thought he was in front of the cameras to tape a holiday “hoo-ah” to his fellow soldiers still in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“Elaborate posts on Facebook, that’s exactly what I did to take off this plan,” Andrea Garcia said after the successful surprise. “And, luckily, he trusts me so much that it was very believable.”

While his wife and kids beamed beside him, Capt. Garcia himself was speechless.

“I don’t have anything to say because I’m totally caught off guard right now,” he said. “I’m still kind of shocked, believe it or not. I think of all the things we’ve done in the last year, this is probably the most chaotic one.”

The Garcias said they are looking forward to the weekend pancake breakfasts and the little moments they’ve missed in the past year.

“They don’t get to see their dad in the morning or to say, ‘Hi, how was your day?’ or get their dad to make them pancakes that he used to every Sunday,” Andrea Garcia told “GMA.” “[The] things that normal parents do for their kids.”

For daughter Ali, 6, seeing her dad this Christmas might top even a visit from Santa Claus.

“This is a Christmas miracle,” she said.

                                                            (Image Credit: Richard Dawson/AFP/Getty Images)

As the father of two military sons, Prince Charles says he worries “all the time” about Princes William and Harry’s safety.

“As you can imagine, being a parent of two boys in the armed forces, I do share with you the worry and anxiety of not knowing the exact details about our children’s whereabouts,” Prince Charles told a gathering of military members and their families, according to British newspaper the Sun.

He was addressing guests at the Sun’s Military Awards Thursday night in London.

“The younger one is at this moment in Afghanistan,” he said, referring to Prince Harry, 28. “Fortunately, he rings me every now and then. … And from time to time, I’ve even persuaded him to write me a letter.”

The prince, who himself served in the Navy and Air Force,  said he encourages letters over emails or texts because, “In 30 years time or 40 years time, that will be interesting history.”

Harry is an Apache helicopter co-pilot and Prince William is a Royal Air Force search-and-rescue helicopter pilot. He praised the “unending relentless courage” of the armed forces as well as the “extraordinary resilience and the unbelievable support” provided by their families at home.

“I really do understand the worry of service families when their loved ones are serving in somewhere like Afghanistan,” Charles said, according to the Sun. “It’s almost easier for those serving away than for those left behind because you worry all the time.”

Prince Charles poked fun at his mischievous younger son by saying, “If I want to see what my children are up to, I look at the front page of the Sun.”

Photos of  Harry’s naked partying in Las Vegas were on the newspaper’s cover in August.

The normally conservative prince has been uncharacteristically open about his emotions this week following the news that he is going to become a grandfather.

“I’m thrilled, marvelous,” Prince Charles, 64, said Thursday. “It’s a very nice thought of grandfatherhood in my old age, if I may say so. So that’s splendid.”

                                                                                                             (Image Credit: ABC News)

Marine Corps veteran Wesley Olivo joined the military because of his appreciation for his own brother’s service. “My brother, he was a huge role model in my life,” he said when I met up with him at his home in Chicago.

But after boot camp, the reality of his decision set it, and he wondered, “What was I thinking?”

Olivo, 25, encountered what he calls a “huge culture shock” when he arrived in Iraq for the first of his two tours, citing the overwhelming lack of infrastructure in the country.  The contrast to his world at home was compounded when, one month into his service, he witnessed a vehicle carrying an improvised explosive device crash into an Iraqi police station, killing the Iraqi police chief.

“This is going to be a tough seven month,” he thought to himself.

But when I asked him whether he had any regrets about joining the Marines and heading off to war (the infantryman retired after four years as a corporal), his response was telling. “I can’t say that I do,” he said. “I’ve developed so much with it: attention to detail, becoming more organized.  The one regret I have was that I missed the birth of my daughter.”

Olivo’s daughter, Cecilia, is now 4, and he has safely returned from the war in Iraq to watch her grow up, while he builds a civilian life for himself and his family.

He is now working full-time toward a degree in accounting at Robert Morris University in Chicago, under the GI Bill, which provides financial assistance for education to servicemen and servicewomen. He has a 3.5 GPA

Olivo is also aware of time that he needs to spend outside the classroom to succeed in business. “The networking, or those connections, that is not covered under the GI Bill, so that is on me,” he said.

As part of our Standing Up For Heroes program, we have paired Olivo with mentor and financial expert Mellody Hobson.  Hobson is the president of Ariel Investments and sits on the board of a number of business organizations.

Olivo said he is looking for a mentor who is blunt, one who will “give it to me straight,” and someone who will tell him what he needs to do to succeed.

                                   (Mike Marsland/WireImage/Getty Images)

Kim Kardashian will honor United States servicemen at the Marine Corps Ball in New Bern, N.C., tonight, Us Weekly reports.

The reality star rearranged her schedule to attend the HQ Battery 10th Marine Birthday Ball with an unnamed serviceman who invited her months ago as a special guest. Kardashian, 32, is currently in Miami, Fla., filming “Kim & Kourtney Take Miami.”

PHOTOS: KIM K TWEETS PHOTO OF HER BOOTY

Kardashian isn’t the first star to attend the Marine Corps Ball. Mila Kunis attended last year’s event with Marine Sgt. Scott Moore, who videotaped his invitation to the star. Kunis’ “Friends With Benefits” co-star, Justin Timberlake, danced the night away with Cpl. Kelsey de Santis at last year’s ball in Washington, D.C.

ABC News’ Liz Sintay and Eliza Murphy Report:

November is Military Family Month, a time for honoring those who sacrifice so much for our country. And the OWN Network is debuting a new series on Nov. 18 called “Married to the Army: Alaska.” It offers an inside look at the lives of military wives and the special sisterhood they form while their husbands are deployed.

Yolanda Goins is one of the stars of the new OWN series, and is no stranger to the responsibility a spouse shoulders for family and home while her husband, Col. Morris Goins, is overseas.

“We decided to do the show because we noticed that our spouses really give a tremendous sacrifice to our nation,” Goins said on “Good Morning America” today. “So while the soldiers are serving on one side of the battlefield, we have children and spouses at home serving on the other side of the battlefield.”

Yolanda Goins was born into the army life as the daughter of two career soldiers. Her husband just completed his fourth deployment.

“It’s hard for me to separate the army from the wife because that’s who I am. I’m an army wife,” Goins told ABC News.

The couple has one son, Cameron, who is following in his dad’s footsteps as a junior at West Point.

“Our son is a Cow, which is a junior at West Point. We are stationed in Alaska so we don’t have the opportunity to see him very much,” Goins said.

But that all changed this morning on “GMA. ” Cameron had secretly come to New York to surprise his father on the show. Yolanda was in on the surprise, but Col. Goins had no idea.

“It’s phenomenal. It’s just good to see him. It’s been a while,” Col. Goins said.

“He’s just a great leader to me,” Cameron said of his father. “I want to be just like him, follow the same career path and everything.”

Goins said special moments like these make the military family bonds that much stronger.

“It strengthens the bonds because when your husband or your son is away, you cannot see them every day. My husband left for work one day and did not come home until 10 months later. It teaches you to cherish those moments that you have, and to focus on what is important,” Goins said.

There is arguably no one more qualified than Goins to bring together this sisterhood of army wives at Fort Richardson, Alaska, where the OWN series is based. It’s a support group that never knows what the new day will bring.

“As an army wife, I can say with 98 percent certainty that your husband will be different, but that’s nothing to fear. It’s just something prepare for,” Goins explained to a new Army wife. “And on the flip side, you won’t be the same.”

For these women, “deployment” is more than just a word. It’s a way of life, and a tough one at that. But this group is up to the task.

“Inside your knees are buckling, but when it’s required, you stand strong as a mighty warrior. That’s what army wives are,” Goins said.