A Nebraska mom's blue-ribbon tribute to her soldier son in Afghanistan gained a thumbs-up from a Texan vying to be his future commander in chief.
The butter cow and the big pig had no comment.
The pork princess smiled.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry and three icons of the Iowa State Fair were the latest subjects of mom Patty Benal's mission to photograph a life-size foamboard cutout of her son in places and with people on the home front.
"We've had a lot of fun with Flat Jim," Benal said Tuesday.
Flat Jim is the name Benal gave the cutout of her 25-year-old son, Nebraska National Guard Sgt. James Benal of Wahoo, Neb. Real Jim is a squad leader and carpenter with the Wahoo-based 623rd Engineer Company, deployed to eastern Afghanistan.
Flat Jim was at the Iowa State University football stadium for Nebraska's 31-30 overtime win last fall. It has taken road trips to the Corn Palace in Mitchell, S.D., Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo and a first-grade classroom in Grinnell, Iowa.
Closer to the family home in Wahoo, Flat Jim has made the rounds to the local Dairy Queen, a Knights of Columbus fundraiser and a dinner theater production of "Footloose'' at Wahoo Neumann High School, where he posed with the cast and orchestra.
Flat Jim was the lone male at a Girls Night Out weekend Benal and three friends organized.
The cutout attended family Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners but wasn't invited to real-life sister Jacey Benal's graduation from Iowa State.
Patty Benal posts photos in a private Facebook album, titled the "Adventures of Flat Jim,'' for family and friends — and to amuse her son serving halfway around the world.
"My husband (Gene) thinks I'm nuts," she said.
Benal said Flat Jim was inspired by Flat Daddies, full-size printed posters of parents serving overseas in the military. The waist-up cutouts are said to be a useful device to help children cope with the stress of long parental absences.
Benal said she plans to put all the Flat Jim photos in a keepsake book for her son.
James Benal graduated from Wahoo Neumann in 2005 and attended Northeast Community College in Norfolk for a year before joining the National Guard. He works at the Guard's Camp Ashland.
His company arrived in Afghanistan in December and is scheduled to return home in October. The soldiers are building outposts, guard towers and other infrastructure at Forward Operating Base Sharana that will be used by the Afghan National Army after U.S. forces leave.
Patty Benal said she and Flat Jim encountered a lot of chuckles, laughs and thank-yous for her son's military service from people at the Iowa State Fair this week.
She didn't expect to bump into Perry, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.
"I asked the governor if he would be willing to take a picture with Flat Jim. He was very kind," Benal said. "He wanted to know his unit and where he was."
Flat Jim got national attention when a news agency transmitted photos of Perry with the cutout.
Back at work in Wahoo the next day, Benal showed colleagues her own photos of Flat Jim at the fair.
More people recognized the butter cow than the politician.
Contact the writer:
402-444-1127, [email protected]
Copyright ©2011 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or redistributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.
