Hollow army.

BEHOLD THE Holbrook family: Logan, age 3, Justin, age 14, and their father, Lt. Col. Randall Holbrook of the Maine National Guard. If Dad seems to lack a little depth, it's because the real Randall Holbrook is currently serving abroad. The government won't bring him home, but it can do the next best thing: create a life-sized cutout for his wife and kids to carry around, as part of the Maine National Guard's Flat Daddy/Flat Mommy program.

It sounds like a wry satire--an echo, even more sardonic, of that ancient Saturday Night Live sketch about the insurance company that replaces departed dads. ("Sure, you've provided for them financially--but what about their emotional and physical needs?") But the Flat Daddies actually exist, deployed to children's homes while their real fathers are deployed abroad. According to The Boston Globe, about 200 of the cutouts have been created so far.

I won't second-guess the families that have signed up for the program. Almost everyone in America keeps pictures of absent loved ones, and a foam board that looks like a father may well be better than no father at all. But it's a pretty poor substitute.