U.S. Army Soldier Surprises Mom at Massachusetts Traffic Stop
Darlene MacAllister thought she was getting pulled over for her driving.
— -- A Massachusetts mom went from thinking she was being issued a driving ticket to being reunited with her military son all in the span of about five minutes Monday.
The surprise began this weekend when, knowing he was going to be flying home to Hanson, Mass., from military training in Fort Carson, Colorado, Army engineer Alan MacAllister got in touch with a local police officer.
“I saw videos of other [military] surprises and saw how much joy it brought them and knew my mom would love something like this,” MacAllister, who will turn 19 tomorrow, told ABC News. “We’re always joking with each other.”
MacAllister and the police officer, a family friend, devised a plan to have officers pull MacAllister’s mom over on her way home from her overnight job at a local residence for handicapped patients.
“He called me as I was driving home and said his flight was cancelled and he’d have to fly home tomorrow,” Darline said of the call she received from her son around 9 a.m. Monday. “He got another call just as I was rounding the corner and then we got disconnected.”
When Darline turned the corner, she saw blue police lights flashing behind her car.
“I’m hoping it’s not me but it was,” she said.
The police officers pulled Darline over and that is where the surprise began.
“They told me to get out of the car, which I was nervous about, because that’s strange but there was more than one officer there so I felt it was okay,” Darline recalled. “They told me to walk to the back of the vehicle because they needed a picture and then told me I was going too fast.”
“I didn’t think I was speeding but maybe I was because I was thinking about my son,” she said. “Then another came up and said, ‘I’m here about your sticker,’ and was asking questions.”
As soon as Darline was fully distracted, the officers radioed for her son, who had been sitting in a police cruiser watching it all unfold, to approach her from behind.
“I think I said, ‘I hate you right now,’ but he knows I didn’t mean it,” Darline said of her first words to her son. “Just that he put me through that.”
“I was filled with so much emotion,” she said. “It was overwhelming.”
MacAllister, who, since January, had only seen his mom on a one-day visit in May for his graduation, says the surprise all unfolded perfectly.
“It came off great … everything I expected,” he said.
MacAllister will stay with his family through the Independence Day holiday, returning to Colorado next Monday.
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