Over drinks Ron told me about himself (and what a sorry story it turned out to be). He was an ex-Green Beret who had been a member of the Delta Force involved in the Black Hawk Down situation. His unit had been ambushed when they had tried to capture a Somali war lord. Ron had been hospitalized for quite a while because of shrapnel being lodged into his head, back and butt. While he was in recovery, his 30 year old wife died of pneumonia. As I sat across from Ron, listening to him tell this horror story, I wondered how he was able to tell me this story without breaking down crying. What he’d been through would break most people and yet he held it together… or so I thought.
A few weeks after we started seeing each other, I invited Ron over to my apartment in Milton. I loved my little, two-bedroom apartment and was proud of it. As I gave Ron the two minute tour, which would, of course, end in my bedroom, I noticed that he was acting peculiar. He was opening up all of my doors, including closet doors to see what was inside. Of course, when he opened my closet door, he was immediately rained down upon with dirty laundry. I had “cleaned” in a hurry and shoved my dirty laundry up on a high shelf in the closet never imagining that my date would be inspecting my closet. Ron actually went into my bathroom and peered behind the shower curtain and walked the perimeter of the house as well. When he was done with his thorough inspection, I asked him what the hell he was doing. To his credit, he hung his head and told me that after the Somali ambush, he couldn’t help himself; he had to locate all exits and make sure that no enemies lurked. He was suffering from some serious Post Traumatic Syndrome. Although his behavior should have been a huge red flag, I felt bad for him and let it go; after all, I wasn’t so perfect myself (i.e. dirty laundry in the closet).
A few days later, Ron felt comfortable enough with me to ask me to come to his house for dinner. He lived in a little town north of Boston in a little cottage. We had a lovely dinner together without incident. All was going well, or so I thought, until I asked him if he had photos of his past. Now in my experience, when you ask people to share photos of their past, they like it. They usually pull out their family photo album and tell you stories of their family as they flip through the pages. It’s a great way to get to know someone. You find out about their family and friends; you find out how they tell stories or if they even tell stories at all.
When Ron pulled out his album, I didn’t know what to expect but it most certainly was not an album full of dead people. Ron had taken pictures throughout his time as a Green Beret of dead people. Whether he had killed them himself of whether a colleague had killed the person, it didn’t matter. The pictures weren’t just of dead people lying on the ground; the soldiers had propped up the bodies into different positions and had posed them for the camera with cigarettes in their mouths or holding a gun or sitting in a vehicle with a flag of Somalia waiving. The pictures were so horrifying to me that I honestly can’t even remember most of them. I was too busy trying to figure out how to escape this house and this man without seeming like I was freaking out and running away. This was definitely a red flag that I could not ignore. It didn’t matter how cute the guy was; this was just over the top. Somehow, I managed to make my excuses and slip away. Ron must have realized things had gone horribly wrong because he quit the Charthouse right after the date. I was relieved and resolved to put my sweet flirty trap on suspension for a while as clearly my crazy man radar was off kilter.
Years later, I look back on my time with Ron and am thankful for the lesson he taught me: you might ignore a red flag or two with a man, but not when he shows you pictures of dead people holding flags.
funny!!! and a little bit sad.
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