When you think of gender reveal parties, or events that combine fun and games with revealing the gender of your expected child, the Marines probably aren’t the first thing that comes to mind. Camaraderie and troop welfare, however, comes in all forms.
Without question, one of the hardest parts of serving in the military is the time you spend away from home. It’s not just about missing your family, it’s also about missing some of the big events along the way–milestones in our lives that we forgo in favor of defending and serving our nation.
Fortunately, rapid advances in communications technology has eased this burden in recent years, and today, many service members find creative ways to celebrate, participate, and cherish these once-in-a-lifetime moments, even while thousands of miles away from home.
Such was recently the case for U.S. Marine Cpl. Jeffrey Miranda, who is currently deployed to Australia as a part of Marine Rotational Force Darwin. Miranda’s wife back home is pregnant, and while all the members of his family in the States had the chance to find out the inbound baby’s gender in real time, Miranda’s service has kept him away from home and more or less in the dark.
That is, until his wife and Marines from his unit got together to organize a Gender Reveal Party for Cpl. Miranda, complete with cake he could cut to reveal either blue or pink innards–finally letting the dad-to-be know if he can expect a son or daughter.
Which can he expect? We’re not going to spoil it. You’ll have to watch the video to find out.