Soldiers make huge sacrifices when the agree to serve their country, as they are putting their lives on the line in doing so. Another sacrifice that they make is being away from their families for long periods of time, and a new viral video is showing this sacrifice in a heartbreaking way.

Officer Kang of the People’s Liberation Army recently returned to his home in Shandong, China for the Chinese New Year after a 10-month deployment. Kang had planned to surprise his 4 year-old son, but when he got home, things did not quite go the way he had hoped.

His little boy began to cry and run away when the “strange man” approached him on the street just outside the family home. It was immediately clear that the boy had no idea that the “strange man” was actually his father, who had been gone so long that the toddler had forgotten what he looked like.

The video below shows the mother trying to film the reunion as the little boy says, “You’re lying, you’re lying, he’s not my daddy!”

“It’s your daddy! Look, it is your daddy!” the mother says as her voice breaks with emotion.

The boy can later be seen walking past his dad without saying a word.

“We actually wanted to record the moment my son and my husband reunited,” his mother said. “We never expected him to not recongise his own father.”

She went on to say that ten months was far too long for the boy to be separated from his dad.

“Maybe he looked different in real life than in his photos. And that probably scared the him,” she said.

It was only when the mother used FaceTime to call her husband in the middle of the street that the boy finally recognized him as his dad.

“He finally recognised him in the end,” she said. “He eventually gave his father a big hug in the elevator. We were all crying.”

Videos like this serve as a reminder of what soldiers go through during their deployments.