Greene County soldier returns home from Middle East deployment to surprise mom, brother
Tyler Teagarden hugs his mother Tiffany Teagarden after surprising her at work at Pathways in Waynesburg Friday.
Tyler Teagarden, 21, of Brave, came home after being deployed 10 months in the Middle East with the Pennsylvania National Guard and surprised his mother, Tiffany Teagarden, at her job at Pathways in Waynesburg Friday.
Tyler Teagarden gives his mother Tiffany Teagarden a big hug at Pathways in Waynesburg Friday.
Tyler Teagarden, 21, of Brave, came home after being deployed 10 months in the Middle East with the Pennsylvania National Guard and surprised his mother, Tiffany Teagarden, at her job at Pathways in Waynesburg Friday.
Tyler Teagarden, 21, of Brave, came home after being deployed 10 months in the Middle East with the Pennsylvania National Guard and surprised his brother, Colby Rutan, during class Friday at Margaret Bell Miller Middle School in Waynesburg.
Tyler Teagarden, 21, of Brave, came home after being deployed 10 months in the Middle East with the Pennsylvania National Guard and surprised his brother, Colby Rutan, during class Friday at Margaret Bell Miller Middle School in Waynesburg.
WAYNESBURG – Tiffany Teagarden typically hates surprises. But she loved nothing more than the surprise of her life she received Friday morning when her 21-year-old son Tyler came home on leave from military service in the Middle East.
Tiffany, of Brave, went to her job at Pathways in Waynesburg that morning like any other day, thinking she was being interviewed by a reporter about the details of her job. That’s when Tyler Teagarden sneaked behind her and covered her eyes with his hands.
At first, she thought a coworker was playing a trick on her. But when she pulled his hands away, her emotional reaction was exactly what he had hoped for.
“Oh my God, you’re home!” she said while embracing him. “What are you doing here? Let me see this face.”
Tyler, a member of the Pennsylvania National Guard, was deployed overseas on his 21st birthday, May 14.
“It was pretty tough,” Tiffany said. “I missed him so much.”
He graduated from Waynesburg Central High School in 2013 and entered the guard unit in Waynesburg the following year.
“It was quite an experience to get to travel overseas,” he said. “The world over there is entirely different.”
He wasn’t expected to return from this first deployment until June, but he got called home early and wanted to surprise his family, especially his mother.
“She absolutely hates surprises, so I thought it would be the best way possible to surprise her,” Tyler said.
Tyler’s grandmother, Barb Teagarden, and his great-grandmother, Helen Christopher, were in on his secret. He told Barb two months ago about his plan to surprise his mother as well as his younger brother, Colby Rutan.
“You’re going to be writing my obituary, because my daughter’s going to kill me for keeping this a secret,” Barb told a reporter. “I’m so excited to have him home.”
Tyler flew to Texas and was there for two weeks before flying into Pittsburgh, where Barb picked him up Thursday afternoon. He said he was one of several National Guard members from Greene County to come home this week. Barb took him to pick up a new car that he purchased and then out to eat.
”I’m probably going to get something from every fast food place in town,” he said Thursday. “I haven’t had fast food in a year. I want a Big Mac and a sweet tea so bad.”
Barb hid Tyler until the next morning when he first surprised his mother, then they went to Margaret Bell Miller Middle School to surprise Colby , who was in his eighth-grade social studies class.
Tyler walked in the back of the classroom and sat next to his brother. Colby said that at first, he thought it was his teacher sitting next to him, but when he looked up he was surprised to get a hug – which pulled him right out of his seat – from his big brother.
“I haven’t seen him in a year,” Tyler said. “He’s been wearing my boots, and he keeps my dog tag in his shoelaces.”
The social studies teacher, John VanMeter, who’s been teaching 33 years, said he also had Tyler in his class a few years ago and remembers when their mother was a student there.
“It’s pretty neat to see a young man serving his country come back into this building,” he said, before shaking hands with Tyler. “I’m proud of you. Thank you for what you do.”
Tyler also planned to surprise his father, Hershel Rutan, where he works at the Jefferson saw mill. The extended family and his friends will get to see him at a 4 p.m. Saturday party at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post in Carmichaels.
Tyler said his deployment cycles are every 3 to 5 years, so he expects to be home for long enough to finish his bachelor’s degree in criminal justice at California University of Pennsylvania. He said he’d like to get a job in local law enforcement and his five-year plan is to move to Washington, D.C. to work for the Department of Homeland Security.
Tiffany and Colby got the rest of the day off from work and school to be with Tyler, who said he was glad the surprise went according to plan.
“I’m just happy to be home,” he said.