A military dad recreated this photo, and it’s making us feel things
Last week, 29-year-old Dallas English posted two photographs to Reddit. Both photographs were of a man in a military uniform, making a cute face at a happy, giggling baby in his arms. But one photograph looked much older than the other.
“I’d planned this photo years ago as long as I had a son and was still in the military,” Dallas wrote on Reddit. “My dad and I, and my son and I.” That’s right: with his little son, Dallas recreated a 29-year-old picture of him as a baby with his army dad. Within these two pictures are three generations, and it’s making us a pretty teary, TBH.
When Dallas initally found the 1985 photograph about eight years ago, it really resonated with him. “It was probably like eight years or so ago that I came back across it at my dad’s in an old family album,” Dallas, who is a staff sergeant in the Air Force, told ABC News. “I came home late and was going through a bunch of the pictures and I made a copy of this one because it’s one of my favorites. As soon as I saw I thought to myself, ‘It would be really neat to recreate it when I have a son or a daughter.’”
Dallas spent four years in Guam, two years in Turkey, and did a deployment in Afghanistan. When 10-month-old Ace was born, Dallas had the perfect opportunity to recreate the snapshot with his Air Force uniform. He uploaded the two near-identical pictures to Reddit. Since his initial posting on June 15th, the picture has got a ton of hits and has been upvoted over 3,000 times by Redditors.
When Dallas showed the picture to his father, he was totally speechless. “He’s not a man of many words,” Dallas told ABC News, “but he did really like the picture.”
“It’s just a heritage-type thing,” Dallas told ABC News. “I think it’ll be neat for him to look back on it to see his grandfather and dad as a baby, and then his dad and him as a baby. It’d be really awesome if he could do the same photo too in like 25 or 30 years.”
Dallas hopes that Ace will uphold the tradition when he has his own child. “If my son decides to join the military or any uniformed service, even if not and he’s wearing a suit and tie, I hope he does do his own version,” he told Daily Mail.
Dallas also explained to Daily Mail that he wishes he would have captioned the photo on Reddit differently. “When I wrote that I just worded it wrong,” he said. “I think I specified ‘son’ because I was the son in the first photo and it just went along with the photo from the past. But if I had a daughter instead of a son, I absolutely would have still done the photo!” YESSS.
He also gave Ace a message through Daily Mail: “Mommy and Daddy love you, Ace and we are so proud of how smart and happy you are! I’m really glad that you got the chance to warm so many hearts through this photo and story!”
Oh, our hearts. We love this entire idea, Dallas, and it seriously got us right in the feels.
Images via Twitter, via
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