When Soldiers Go to War, Flat Daddies Hold Their Place at Home
HERMON, Me. — It was the first day of school, and distance not withstanding, 9-year-old Baylee Smith wanted to take a picture with her father, Mark, who is stationed with a National Guard unit in Afghanistan. Real daddy was not available, but Sergeant Smith’s doppelgänger was.
“Where’s Flat Daddy?” an excited Baylee asked as her stepmother, Jennifer Smith, pulled a large cardboard picture of Sergeant Smith, in his uniform, out of her Chevy Blazer and propped him on the bumper. The two, along with Ms. Smith’s young sons, Alec and Derek, posed for a picture with their Flat Daddy, who promptly fell down.
“Stop it Dad, that’s not funny. It’s not a joke,” Baylee said with a laugh.
The Maine National Guard is giving life-size from-the-waist-up pictures of soldiers to the families of deployed guard members. Guard officials and families say the cutouts, known as Flat Daddies or Flat Soldiers, connect families with a relative who is thousands of miles away. The Flat Daddies are toted everywhere from soccer practice to coffee shops to weddings.
“The response has been unbelievable,” said Sgt. First Class Barbara Claudel, director of the Maine National Guard’s family unit. “The families just miss people so much when they’re gone that they try to bring their soldier everywhere.”
The Maine National Guard has given out more than 200 Flat Soldiers since January. While other guard units are recommending Flat Soldiers, and families around the country are using them, officials here say Maine’s National Guard is the only one giving one to each family that asks.
Flat Daddies have been used by military families since at least 2003, when Cindy Sorenson of Bismarck, N.D., ordered a life-size photo of her former husband, Capt. Dave Bruschwein, on a piece of foam board when he was stationed in Iraq with the North Dakota National Guard.
Ms. Sorenson heard that the children of local guard members made small cutouts of themselves modeled on the children’s book “Flat Stanley,” where the character is flattened and can travel by envelope, and then mailed the images to Iraq.
She wanted to make a similar, life-size version of Captain Bruschwein for their daughter, Sarah, who was 13 months old when her father was deployed. She took a picture of him and his jacket measurements to a local printer, who charged her $75 for Flat Dave, as he was called.
Ms. Sorenson said it helped Sarah, now 4, recognize her father when he came home on leave. “She saw him on the jetway and said, ‘Daddy, Daddy,’ ” Ms. Sorenson said. “There was no anxiety.”
Ms. Sorenson shared the idea with Elaine Dumler, a Colorado motivational speaker, who included it in a book on coping with deployment.
Ms. Dumler said National Guard families were receptive to the idea because many had never dealt with a long overseas deployment.
“It affects these families a little more,” Ms. Dumler said, “because they’re not living on a base or a post, surrounded by families who know what they’re going through. They tend to feel a little more isolated.”
That is especially true here in Maine, whose National Guard members are randomly assigned to bases throughout that large state. The National Guard tries to have parties where Flat Soldiers are invited, and family members sometimes take them to support meetings.
Cristin Gardner of Ellsworth, whose husband, Troy, is stationed in Iraq, said she often caught her 6-year-old son, Ashton, including Flat Daddy when he played with soldiers.
Rachel Austin of Colorado Springs paid $50 for a flat version of her husband, Toby, in February after hearing about them through the Colorado National Guard. Ms. Austin said Toby was at the dinner table every night with their sons, Ayden, 20 months, and Ryan, 5. Flat Toby also has been to pre-kindergarten graduation, an uncle’s 50th birthday party in Cheyenne, Wyo., and a Denver Broncos game, although he sat in the car because it was raining.
Ms. Austin said Ayden, who was 13 months old when she brought Flat Toby home, recognized his father, often taking the image off its usual chair and kissing it. Flat Toby is a real person in their house, she said.
“It’s nice to see him each day, just to remember that he’s still with us,” Ms. Austin said. “It’s one of the best things I’ve done during this deployment. I really think it’s helped us stay connected, to remember that he’s still with us.”
Angela Williams, 27, of Anchorage, got a flat version of her husband, who she married three months before he was deployed to Afghanistan, through the Alaska National Guard.
Her flat husband spends most of his time in their bedroom closet, but she will occasionally take him out to show to friends or to look at herself.
“He went away so recently after we got married that sometimes I look at it and say, ‘Oh, I’m married, and he’s real and he’s gorgeous,”’ Ms. Williams said.
Parents of young deployed soldiers are also using flat soldiers. Carol Campbell of Anson, Me., got a flat version of her 24-year-old daughter, Jessica, who now sits at the family’s kitchen table. Ms. Campbell writes all of the places Jessica has visited on the back of the cutout. In June, Flat Jessica even chaperoned an after-prom party that her younger sister attended.
Ms. Campbell said that her youngest daughter thought the idea was odd at first, and that their dog, Speckles, used to bark at the Flat Soldier, but that both are now used to it.
“At first, it can take you aback, but it never did for me,” Ms. Campbell said. “I just felt like her presence is here. The Flat Soldier does provide comfort, and we’ll take it any way we can.”
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