After Months Away, Military Dad Comes Home to Reunite with Wife and 3 Sons: 'Really Special' (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Photo:McElliott Family

McElliott Family

For the McElliotts, spending time together is all about the little things.

The Texas-based military family of five — David, a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps, his wife Jennifer, and their three sons, Connor, 14, Keegan, 12, and Colton, 5 — was recently reunited when David, who had been away for six months, came home for a brief visit to San Antonio.

At first, the reunion was supposed to be a surprise. But then the logistics of getting David home from Chile proved too complicated, he tells PEOPLE.

The McElliotts didn’t waste any time bonding at the weekend event, where 49 other veterans and their loved ones embarked on an off-road adventure.

“I think it’s always good to meet other families just because you have that common bond of moving so often, being in the military,” David, 50, tells PEOPLE.

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That’s certainly been part of the McElliott family’s story. Since David and Jennifer married in 2009, they’ve moved nine times as David has been deployed to Asia, Australia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and South America.

As a family, they’ve lived in California, Alabama, Florida, Washington and Texas, and they even spent a six-month stint in Rome, Italy. In 2021, youngest son Colton attended three schools alone.

Now, as David’s career in the military winds down — he’s scheduled to retire in 2027 — the family is recalibrating and remembering what it means to be together.

“David’s missed a lot, Connor’s eighth grade promotion ceremony, and he missed Keegan’s fifth grade graduation last year because he wasn’t home,” Jennifer, 47, says. “It is really hard to find a family photo of all five of us. Often, he’s not in them."

“That’s challenging,” she adds. “But these kind of experiences to come back to are really nice. They’re really special.”

Over that weekend, the McElliott boys and their parents interacted with other families as they shared meals and took in the scenic Central Texas landscape. Of course, there was also room on the agenda for having fun.

“The hit was the 1.3 mile racetrack that was set up like a rally racing course with hairpin turns,” David tells PEOPLE. “And you got to go on there as basically as fast as you could drive the kids.”

“I think they have been an amazing, amazing organization to be a part of,” Jennifer tells PEOPLE. “I just I couldn’t believe the things that they offer.”

As for the weekend in the Hill Country, it was a memory that the McElliotts say they will cherish.

Adds David, “I think everybody had a good time driving the Broncos around and it was a good way to kind of reconnect now that I’m almost at the end of my tour.”

source: people.com