Nightly News   |  August 11, 2011

Soldier disguised as catcher surprises wife

Darla Harlow was given the honor of throwing out the ceremonial first pitch at a Mississippi Braves game on Friday. But Harlow had no idea the man behind the catcher’s mask was her husband, just back from Afghanistan. NBC’s Brian Williams reports.

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This content comes from a Full-Text Transcript of the program.

BRIAN WILLIAMS, anchor: Finally tonight, people have grown to love one of the new traditions of the YouTube era, a returning war veteran surprising his unsuspecting loved ones while a camera records it all. In fact, when you think about it, it's one of the few good things to emerge from our two wars. There are now so many of them, there's a cable show devoted just to show these surprise reunions. But we really love the one you're about to see because it took a lot of work and it came off perfectly. Darla Harlow and her daughters thought they were picked at random by the team to have a special night at the Mississippi Braves game Friday night. In fact, Darla got to throw out the first pitch, which went fine. And, as always, the catcher started toward her to give her the ball and then it happened. The catcher was Major Michael Harlow of the Mississippi National Guard , and that would be her husband, just back from Afghanistan . A number of us actually thought the major bears a resemblance to Mickey Mantle , number 7 of Yankee legend. Hey, Major, way to make it tougher for husbands everywhere. It turns out Dad used his two beautiful daughters as co-conspirators and it was two weeks in the planning while he was in Afghanistan . Major Harlow , well done. Welcome home. Thank you for your service.