Who's your (flat) daddy?

[IdesOfOctober]

This has got to be one of the saddest metaphors for our times that I have seen in a long time.

From the November issue of Details, page 51, in the "Know + Tell" section:

"Flat Daddy. Slang. n. A life-size foam-board replica of a National Guard member in Iraq or Afghanistan given to his family for emotional support. (About 200 flat daddies and mommies have been printed so far.)

Provenance: Military bases

Usage: 'Go bring your flat daddy in from the yard, Bobby. It's time to set him up at the table for dinner'."

I couldn't help but think that Shrubya has flattened the hopes and dreams of military families throughout this nation. Instead of "Dear Leader," I vote we start calling him "Flat Daddy," as an homage to his flat earth foreign policy.

Ides

[zanne]

1. One of the saddest things about this administration.

Kids being forced to allay their loneliness for their fathers by carrying around cardboard cutouts of them. Pathetic and ridiculous.

[IdesOfOctober]

2. Real "Family Values" don't entail...

... ripping military families apart for wars of choice.

Ides

[leftchick]

3. I think it is so very twisted

and I can only imagine it is harmful not helpful to children. :(



http://www.wcsh6.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=40970

A serviceman stationed in Iraq is home with his wife and kids.... sort of. Specialist Troy Gardner is still in Iraq, but his face follows around his family all day.


His family is part of the "Flat Daddy" program. They are life-like cardboard cut-outs given to the families of deployed servicemen.

The Maine National Guard enlarges photos, and families cut and glue them to foam board. The Gardner family get's to bring him along to school, baseball games and he even rides with them in go-karts.

Cristin Gardner, Troy's wife says, "We put Troy's cut-out on the living room couch sometimes, bring him out with us; it's good because we kind of feel like he is here with us."

The "Flat Daddy" program is run through the Maine National Guard headquarters in Augusta.

[IdesOfOctober]

5. I applaud the resourceful efforts of the National Guard...

... to combat the separation anxiety that military families experience.

The commanders in the field have to do everything possible to combat the climate created by the Delegator-in-Chief ("I just do whatever the commanders in the field tell me to do. Nevermind the fact that they wouldn't have to make any recommendations from the field at all, had I not given the order to invade Iraq. And, oh yeah, I almost forgot: Iraq was not a distraction from the mission in Afghanistan, and we don't have two failed states under Powell's 'you break it, you buy it' policy on our hands.")

Ides

[KharmaTrain]

4. Better Than Pine Box Daddy

The victims of any war are the family they leave behind. During WWII my mother suffered alone with the loss of a child while my father served in Europe...and in reading their letters it was heartbreaking to see the angst both went through as they both coped with difficult times and circumstances.

When I first saw the Flat Daddy story I was angry...but then I sat back and thought about it. These young children don't understand what war is or why daddy is gone...just that he is and here's a way they can still bond with a parent despite the separation. The only problems I see are how flat daddy is handled if the real daddy isn't coming back...and I don't necessarily mean this because of death, but for other reasons. Sadly, divorces of returning veterans is among the highest of any profession and while daddy may make it back from Iraq, the marriage may not last the PTSD episodes or the estrangement that 2 or 3 deployments in Iraq have created in many of these men and women.

It's a sad sign of the times...literally.

[IdesOfOctober]

6. All of the phenomena you point out...

... are incredibly important things to bear in mind. The divorce rate spikes during any long-term deployment. The "daddy" or "mommy" who smiled for the camera the day their "Flat Parent" photo was taken may return a very different, unsmiling shell of their former self - or not at all.

Because of the airbrushing of this war, photos of "Pine Box Parents" are not available anymore, whenever our fallen return to Dover: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=dover+afb+military+coffins

Democrats should do a better job of tying "Family Values" to "Military Family Values" - something that Carl Levin does quite well: http://www.nmfa.org/site/PageServer?pagename=support_of_military_families_award

If you're looking for a worthy cause to support before the end of the year, the NMFA is hard to beat.

Ides

[KharmaTrain]

7. That'll Be The Issue in 2010

Unfortunately we're too close to the forest to see the trees as to the the destruction this invasion is doing on our military and its families. No group has been more abused and exploited by the boooshies...from the backdoor draft, extended stays and constant re-deployments to the cuts in benefits and medical care. For a party that claimed to be so "pro military", the Repugnicans have been a disaster for those serving in uniform and this is just the start of this sad tragedy.

As you point out, we don't see the Pine Box daddys and the only people who seem to pay attention to these funerals are Fred Phelp's band of sick psychopants. And, best we not...this country grew against this war on its merits and the focus should be on the living...not the dead.

Thanks to the marvels of modern medicine more and more people who would have been left on past battlefields for dead are able to get immediate care and have a chance at survival...albeit without a hand or leg or half their wits. Our VA hospitals are filling with these people...the real forgotten of this war, and their ranks are swelling. This is the "second deployment" per se for many...the rehabilitation can easily take as long as their hitch and the personal pain and anguish is hidden behind VA walls. That is until the benefits run out and out on the streets they will go.

The Iraqi veteran problem...and it's already a problem...will be the long-lasting scar on this country and booosh's ultimate legacy.

Cheers...

[CorpGovActivist]

8. If I May Weigh in (the VA CARES Program)...

... I worked as a Proposal Manager on one of the VA CARES bids that the Bush Department of Veterans Affairs put out.

This is one of the most twisted RFPs (Request for Proposals) that I've ever seen.

The RFP called for advisors on how to "sell" the VA CARES program to (rightfully) angry veterans' groups. The Orwellian acronym stood for:

Capital
Asset
Realignment for
Enhanced
Services

The upshot of the program? Closing VAMCs in blue states, and opening gleaming new ones in red states - as if the burn victims, amputees, and mentally-scarred veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan only live in red areas of the map.

The program was so heinous, that some of the GOP Members of Congress from upstate NY joined forces with the NY Senate Democrats, to try to stop it in its tracks: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=va+cares+canandaigua&spell=1

Senators Byrd and Rockefeller, and Congressman Rahall, also acted to put the kaibash on the planned closing of the VAMC in my hometown: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=va+cares+beckley

My grandfather taught fighter pilots in the Army Air Corps in WW II, and spent the last few years of his life in and out of that very VAMC. The camaraderie he found there was invaluable to his morale.

Bush has no concept of what he has done to the fabric of America's military families.

How could he? He was hopped up on coke, defending the skies of Alabama from the Viet Cong.

- Dave

[IdesOfOctober]

9. Thankfully, there have been advances...

... in how some of those mental health issues are treated since Vietnam.

Ides