CHICAGO (WLS) — There was a man seated behind Rahm Emanuel during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

hearing on his nomination to be the U.S. Ambassador to Japan

that caught the I-Team’s attention.

He was in a military dress uniform, decorated with service ribbons.

This truly is a backstory from the Rahm Emanuel confirmation hearing in Washington. Because it could be said that the man in the military uniform had Rahm Emanuel’s back.

The last time many Chicagoans saw that man, he was a Chicago teenager. That Navy officer… is Rahm Emanuel’s son, Zachary.

While Emanuel was mayor of Chicago, his son Zachary was seen at political events, on election night, and on family trips.

Zach was a teenage boy in the unusual position of also being the mayor’s son, and before that, the son of a congressman and the chief of staff to a U.S. president.

And Wednesday on Capitol Hill, for hours, he literally had his dad’s back in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee room.

For Chicagoans who lost track of Zach Emanuel after the mayor decided in 2018 not to run for reelection, Zach was with the Emanuel family for the confirmation hearing –and in his father ‘s opening statement about why he is in uniform.

“Together, we’ve raised three great children. Zach graduated from UCLA and is serving as an Intelligence Officer in the United States Navy,” Emanuel said.