Meet Paul Leprohon, a Master Sergeant in the Air Force. He’s military man who has served for 14 years, and will soon be deployed for 8-10 months to Southwest Asia.
Master Sergeant Leprohon comes from a family that has served in the military in Vietnam and Afghanistan. He, himself, has served two different tours in Iraq.
For now, we’ll refer to him as Paul, because this story is much more about him and his family. Paul is the proud father of two daughters. Amelia is 10 years old and Payton is 9. Paul and his wife were joking recently, as he said to her, “I should just get a big cardboard cutout of myself so the girls can at least see me every day.” It then turned from simple joking to a real idea. Paul said, “I went online and searched ‘huge cardboard cutout of self.’ Good Guys Signs popped up, and I reached out to you. I uploaded my picture and I got the proof back like 30 minutes later. I was so surprised how quick and easy the process went. It was the snap of a finger.”
Paul’s wife will tote the cardboard cutout (which we have renamed Cheer-Up) around town to events that the girls will partake in. Amelia plays soccer and Payton does jazz, tap, and ballet dancing. Paul laughed as he told us, “When Amelia is on the soccer field, she’ll be able to look over and say, ‘Look, there’s Cardboard Dad.’ That’ll be funny.”
The Cheer-Up is a surprise for his girls, and he is happy to know it will arrive before he is deployed. He’s excited for it to be there, and he took a more serious tone that really struck us when he said, “For me, life is easy. I go to my deployment destination and I have just one thing to do. The girls bear the brunt of this. I decided to do this because I’ll be missing a big chunk of this special time in their lives, those key events.”
One other cool thing that will happen with the Cheer-Up—when people see it, his wife will be having them sign the back of it. He’s looking forward to seeing who ran into the cardboard version of him when he returns.
On this Christmas Eve, we at Good Guys Signs really enjoyed the story he told us. Master Sergeant Paul Leprohon, we humbly thank you for your service.