Flat Daddies help Guard families ease longing..

[Joanne98]

Guard families cope in two dimensions
`Flat Daddy' cutouts ease longing
By Brian MacQuarrie, Globe Staff | August 30, 2006

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/08/30/guard_families_cope_in_two_dimensions/ PHOTO

Maine National Guard members in Iraq and Afghanistan are never far from the thoughts of their loved ones.

But now, thanks to a popular family-support program, they're even closer.

Welcome to the ``Flat Daddy" and ``Flat Mommy" phenomenon, in which life-size cutouts of deployed service members are given by the Maine National Guard to spouses, children, and relatives back home.

The Flat Daddies ride in cars, sit at the dinner table, visit the dentist, and even are brought to confession, according to their significant others on the home front.

``I prop him up in a chair, or sometimes put him on the couch and cover him up with a blanket," said Kay Judkins of Caribou, whose husband, Jim, is a minesweeper mechanic in Afghanistan. ``The cat will curl up on the blanket, and it looks kind of weird. I've tricked several people by that. They think he's home again."

At the request of relatives, about 200 Flat Daddy and Flat Mommy photos have been enlarged and printed at the state National Guard headquarters in Augusta. The families cut out the photos, which show the Guard members from the waist up, and glue them to a $2 piece of foam board.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/08/30/guard_families_cope_in_two_dimensions/

[maine_raptor]

1. How sad, on so many different levels. n/t

[Joanne98]

2. I would love to know who thought of this.

[DesertRat]

3. Another discussion here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2804776

[tanyev]

4. Flat man responsible for this fiasco.

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http://www.partywedding.com/acc/viewprod.asp?prodID=6266

[uppityperson]

5. Here is the picture.Surreal, appalling.Support the troops, bring them home

Logan, 3, and Justin Holbrook, 14, rode to dinner with the life-size cutout of their father, Lieutenant Colonel Randall Holbrook, a Maine National Guardsman from Hermon, Maine. (Bridget Brown/ Bangor Daily News via Associated Press)


Edited to add, I can understand how having a big picture of a missing parent would comfort a child. What appalls me is the need for the parent to not be home in the first place. On the macabre side, I wonder if they modify the cutouts if the real person is injured?

[Lance_Boyle]

6. Do they charge extra

for removable limbs? And do they even offer super-flamey Flat Blackwater Mercenary cutouts? I'm having a Memorial Day BBQ...