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SALT LAKE CITY — A member of the Utah National Guard coming home on leave was able to surprise his family in two parts.
While Lt. Col. Matthew Branham was in Afghanistan, his wife Traci was diagnosed with breast cancer in Utah.
“There have been down moments,” Branham told NBC affiliate WSAV. “There have been traumatic times, as I'm listening on the phone at 12 o'clock at night my time, and 12 o'clock in the afternoon their time, in the U.S.”
Tammi Sandstrom, Traci’s sister, told KSL in an email that Branham surprised his wife before her second round of chemotherapy.
“I told myself, 'If the tests come back and she needs to have a second round, I was coming home,’” Branham told the Beaufort Gazette.
"I wanted that time just to focus on her and getting her better."
Branham called it “Operation Tango Tango — that’s a military term for Trick Tracy.”
Once the happy couple reunited, they hatched a second plan to surprise their three children who had just flown to South Carolina to vacation with their grandparents.
At the Shannon Tanner Shelter Cove show in Hilton Head, South Carolina, Branham appeared in uniform to his children, who had been invited onstage.
“I don’t think it could have been any better,” Branham said. “The euphoria … the excitement … and all of them were stumped."
“I just started tearing up, and I couldn’t say anything,” 17-year-old Logan Branham said. “I just kind of hugged him.”
“It’s a very difficult thing to deal with,” Matthew Branham said. “So, obviously, we’re relying on our faith and the Lord and also an incredible network with the Utah National Guard and the family pulling together and helping her.”
The Branham family fully intends on spending as much time together as they can.
“They usually have a three-week leave, and then he’s most likely going back,” Traci Branham told the Beaufort Gazette. “But nothing can take away from this time we have here as a family.”
“I’m gonna stay here and I’m gonna see them, and I’m gonna build 55,000 sand castles if I need to before I leave,” Matthew Branham said.
