Life-sized likenesses of Guard members ease separation pains

Lt. Col. Randall Holbrook travels just about everywhere with his wife Mary and their two sons, Justin, 14, and Logan, 5.

He’s quietly in the background on family outings to the grocery store, to restaurants, camping, even on Mary’s most recent visit to her gynecologist.



Randall has little to say because he’s a ‘‘Flat Daddy’’, a two-dimensional foam board likeness from the waist up of the Maine Army National Guard officer from Hermon who was sent to Afghanistan in January with the 240th Engineer Group of Augusta.

The Guard has provided more than 100 of the cutouts to families of deployed service members as a way to ease the pain of separation.

‘‘It’s comforting,’’ said Mary Holbrook. ‘‘It did help me adjust a lot.’’