A GIFT-WRAPPED SURPRISE
Fresh off a six-month deployment, Joshua Grosswiler came to school dressed as the mascot
Chief Joshua Grosswiler removes the rest of his school mascot costume Wednesday after surprising his children, William, 6, left, Sophia, 3, and Joshua, 7, during a welcome-home ceremony for Grosswiler and Chief Robert Jackson during the monthly good news assembly at Sayles School in Baltic. Grosswiler’s children are all students at the school, and Jackson’s wife, Megan, is a teacher there.
Baltic — Navy Chief Joshua Grosswiler wore a different kind of uniform Wednesday.
Donning the costume of Mustang, the Sayles School mascot, Grosswiler, who recently returned from a six-month deployment, surprised his three children during a schoolwide assembly.
His children Joshua, 7, William, 6, and Sophia, 3, expected him to return in March, and a day earlier had received postcards he sent from a port call in Spain.
“So in their mind he’s still over there, you know?” the children’s mother, Yarinette Grosswiler, 29, who planned the surprise, said just before her plan went off without a hitch.
Their dad, a fire control technician who specializes in combat systems on the USS Pittsburgh (SSN 720), returned to Groton with the rest of the crew on Friday. After returning home, he and Yarinette spent the long weekend in New York, where the couple got married.
Under the impression that their mom, a full-time student, was away on a school trip, and that their dad wasn’t due back for another month, the children suspected nothing unusual. Joshua Grosswiler had duty Tuesday, and had to tiptoe around the house Wednesday morning, while the kids got ready for school.
The kids remained clueless until the big reveal Wednesday, when their dad took off the head of the horse costume and said, “Come to me, my jungle friends,” a line from the movie “Ace Ventura” that he repeats each time he comes home.
“Wherever they’re at in the house, they come running, including the dog, Lana, and I usually get toppled,” Joshua Grosswiler, 36, said.
After taking a minute to recognize the man behind the mask, the children began approaching him from different
sections of the room, and embraced dad.
The oldest son, Joshua, a second-grader at Sayles, already had big plans for what he wanted to do with his dad now that he’s home.
The younger Joshua started rattling off a list: “Go to a hotel with a waterpark, and going bowling.” He paused for a moment then asked “And what else?”
Both the elder Joshua Grosswiler and his shipmate Chief Robert Jackson, whose wife, Megan, is a fourth-grade teacher at the school, were honored at Wednesday’s assembly. Students sang the national anthem and “America the Beautiful,” and a group of seventh-graders read poems they’d written about the sacrifices of military service.
Speaking briefly about his Navy service, the elder Joshua Grosswiler said the Pittsburgh had traveled almost 40,000 nautical miles, roughly the equivalent of one and a half trips around the world, and explained his pale skin was due to not seeing much sun in the past six months.
State Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, presented Grosswiler and Jackson with a proclamation from the Connecticut General Assembly welcoming them home and honoring their service.