In a heartwarming video that will soon be flooding email inboxes, Facebook walls and Twitter feeds, a U.S. marine returning home from Afghanistan is greeted by his 6-year-old son at a ceremony inside a school gymnasium. The boy, who had cerebral palsy, was unable to walk when his father, Staff Sgt. Jeremy Cooney, was deployed.

"While daddy was away, he learned to walk," Melissa Cooney, the boy's mother, explained on the WelcomeHomeBlog.com. "For his homecoming, we set it up for Michael to walk to his daddy for the first time ever! We kept the fact that he could walk a secret the whole time his dad was gone!"

"Your children are so very proud of you," an announcer tells Cooney, a father of six, over the gym's loudspeaker.

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