A dedicated dad was training 1,700 miles from home at Travis Air Force Base in California when his nine-year-old daughter was scheduled to participate in a daddy-daughter cheer for the cheerleading squad. Nine-year-old Addie Rodriguez was in tears when she knew that her father was not going to be able to make the special event because he was thousands of miles away from home training for the military to defend American freedom and democracy.<\/p>\n
However, Addie, who participates in cheerleading at St. John Bosco Elementary School in San Antonio, Texas, really wanted her father to attend the daddy-daughter event. However, her father, Abel Rodriguez, was training at the time. He is a senior airman who has risked his life fighting in the name of America across the world, including in Iraq and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
KTLA reported that during the football game, the fathers of the cheerleaders were supposed to step out of the stands and lift their daughters onto their shoulders. While every other girl on the team had her dad present to perform the stunt, Addie was left alone and embarrassed.<\/p>\n
Her mom, Alexis Perry-Rodriguez, explained, \u201cIt was really heartbreaking to see your daughter standing out there being the only one without their father, knowing why he\u2019s away. It\u2019s not just an absentee parent. He\u2019s serving our country.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Addie watched the other cheerleaders enjoy the daddy-daughter routine, she began to cry. She really missed her father and wished that he wasn\u2019t in the military and didn\u2019t have to leave home for long stretches of time to commit to training in the name of war. It was very hard for Addie to watch the other girls get to spend time with their fathers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just felt like really sad because I missed him a lot,\u201d says Addie.<\/p>\n
However, a stranger named Matthew Garcia noticed Addie was suffering. He jumped over the fence and went right up to the nine-year-old girl to ask her if everything was all right.<\/p>\n
Garcia told WOAI, \u201cI ran down from the bleachers right here. I just hopped the fence, and I went over, and I kneeled down, I talked to her, and I said, \u2018Are you OK?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t take a degree in rocket science for Garcia to figure out that Addie was missing her daddy, so he took the man\u2019s place and lifted the nine-year-old girl onto his shoulders so she wouldn\u2019t feel left out.<\/p>\n
Although it would have been better for her dad to do the stunt, both Addie and her mother were delighted by the stranger\u2019s act of kindness.<\/p>\n
\u201cI realized what he [Garcia] was doing, and my heart just melted,\u201d says Alexis. \u201cIt was just the most beautiful thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garcia, a high school senior, was just happy that he was able to help the little girl during her moment of need. Addie, however, was eternally grateful to her hero.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just felt like somebody saved my life,\u201d said the fourth-grader.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s really tough, and she understands that dad goes away for a reason,\u201d says Alexis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A dedicated dad was training 1,700 miles from home at Travis Air Force Base in California when his nine-year-old daughter was scheduled to participate in a daddy-daughter cheer for the cheerleading squad. Nine-year-old Addie Rodriguez was in tears when she knew that her father was not going to be able to make the special event […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1447,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1446"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1448,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446\/revisions\/1448"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}