This American soldier may have difficulty with words, but not with showing what's inside his heart—his love for his six-year-old daughter.
Lance Lambert, a 29-year-old father from Watauga, Texas, recently posted an online video that appeared in the Daily Mail showing him reading a book about Aladdin to his young daughter, Avery, who is lying on the bed wrapped up in blankets.
In the heart-warming video, Lambert is shown having difficulty pronouncing some words as a result of his life-long struggle with severe stammer. Avery is shown repeating some of the mispronounced words to help her frustrated father.
Moments later, she leans over to kiss her father on the head before going to sleep.
"She loves when I read to her and doesn't care one bit that I stutter," Lambert says. "It's very difficult and frustrating, but I'm her dad and this is what dads do."
He says he told her he's sorry that she has a father who stutters. "But she told me it was okay and made her love me more," Lambert says. "That really choked me up."
He says although he has fought in Iraq, his biggest battle came not in that Middle Eastern battleground but in his own country as he struggles with his speech disorder.
"It's awful. Most of my life I have been depressed about it. It makes me feel so self-conscious and unconfident that I try to avoid talking to strangers whenever I can," Lambert says.
He says he uploaded the video to inspire other dads like him who also stammer.
He says he wanted to convey to all fathers with speech difficulty that they are not alone in their struggles.
"We can still do a great job, it's just a little more difficult for us," he says.
Lambert reveals that not all people admire what he did. "There have been some really harsh and horrible comments on the videos but I just delete and ignore them, he says.
"I don't care about that; this is about helping and encouraging other people who, like me, suffer with this every day," he adds.
