Sgt. Kazuo Kaneshiro, a member of the Hawaii Army National Guard, surprised his eight-year-old daughter today when he showed up at her May Day performance at Maemae Elementary School.

Kaneshiro presented a bouquet of flowers his daughter, Alessandra, who was caught off guard following a hula performance with her classmates.

He had been deployed for the past 10 months as part of “Operation Freedom’s Sentinel” in Romania with the 297th Engineer Detachment Fire Fighting Team.

“It felt kind of scary because I didn’t know who he was,” the second grader said. “I thought he was another person because I never saw him for a long time.”

Kaneshiro is a Honolulu county fire fighter for eight years and has served in the Hawaii Army National Guard for 16 years, including previous deployment to Iraq in 2005.

>> Watch Alessandra reunite with her father in this video.