STANTON --  Coltt Kremlacek, Army active duty SPC, returned to the USA on Friday -- something his grandparents didn't know was happening. Kremlacek surprised his grandparents Sunday at the OffRoad Speedway Tractor Pull in Stanton.

"I was just shocked. I had no idea he was coming home," said Gladys Kremlacek, grandmother. "I'm still in shock -- the tears are still coming."

Her husband Ernie said he was impressed with how well their massive family hid the secret. 

"He was a handful as a kid, but the military has straightened him out [...] "He was always a good kid though," Troy Kremlacek, father, said. 

Kremlacek was drawn to the military because of his cousins who were veterans. He's been in Kuwait for the past three months, before that serving in Jordan.

"It's like a brotherhood," he said of the military but said he knows it's hard on his family to be separated. His family only gets to talk on Facebook every couple of weeks.

They do send things -- such as football cleats recently, which the community pitched in to donate to his peers too. 

"When he's overseas you never know what's going to happen," Amy Kremlacek said. "We watch the news and it worries us what if he had to deal with the issues in  Russia."

That's why, going forward into July Fourth, he plans to "celebrate being with family."