Bruised, battered and heartbroken by a man in uniform

IN the 1928 Broadway play Diamond Lil starring the late American film actress Mae West, her character Lou, a sexy 1890s saloon singer, with no shortage of male suitors, says to Captain Cummings, “I always did like a man in a uniform… Why don’t you come up sometime and see me? I’m home every evening.” Even when he says he’s busy with work, as a way to opt out, she persists, “Why don’t you come up sometime. Don’t be afraid. I won’t tell [your superiors].”

Why is the man in uniform so alluring? Is it an image thing, an authority thing, or is it that he is seen as a hero? Whatever the cause, there seems to be a psychological link to why women have this gravitational pull towards a man in uniform, even when those who have had relationships with them confess that they treat women like a covert op in battle – hunt them down, reel them in, then leave them in the trenches.

These four women confess that all the signs were there, but they couldn’t resist the men that left them bruised, battered, and heartbroken. 

Nashette, 30:

I used to work at a fish spot and this police officer would come by regularly as everyone said my fish was popping. Our conversations soon turned to me, and what a nice young woman like me was doing in that place. Soon we started hanging out after work, and he told me that he really liked me, and his parents were filing for him, so he would just let them add me to the filing. I was so silly that I didn’t even see the red flags, or pay attention to the fact that I didn’t even know him that long. He also told me to keep things on the down low as Jamaican people didn’t like to see others prosper. So I kept my mouth shut. I gave him all my papers – passport, banking details, even my PIN – and you know, of course, where this story is going. About a month later the man disappeared, and when I checked my accounts, he had cleaned me out. I was too embarrassed at first to say anything to my boss, but I had to, eventually, because I didn’t know what this man had done with my personal information. My boss laughed, and told me that he was no cop, just a part-time security guard, and he must have gone back to Hanover to his wife and kids. 

Shawna, 33:

To his credit, he didn’t coerce me to get intimate with him or anything, the most we did was kiss, even when I tried to invite him into my bed. But he had me messed up emotionally – I was so entrapped by him, so in love. And there were no signs that anything was amiss – he would pick me up from work daily, we would go for long drives, he would come to my house and we’d cook, hang out, and watch movies, and he would even invite me to events at Camp. So imagine my surprise when I picked up the newspaper one day and saw his wedding in it, and when I read the story, she was his high school sweetheart. If you had cut me at that moment I wouldn’t have bled, that was how shocked I was. I never heard from him after that, but for years after, everytime I saw an officer in a similar uniform, I would cry. 

Joy-Ann, 24:

We met at the SOE [state of emergency] checkpoint back when Spanish Town was under SOE – a group of them had stopped me, and he’d taken my documents, commented on what a nice driver’s licence photo I had, and when I got home and checked my documents, his name and number were written on the envelope my registration was in. I didn’t hesitate – the only warning came from my sisters, who told me to always assume that an army man was married, and to do the necessary checks. But he assured me that he was too young to be tied down like that. Anyway, we had this Oscar-worthy romance novel love affair going on for a while, and I had truly never been happier. Until one day I got a call – from his wife – asking me to leave her husband alone as she was pregnant and couldn’t take the stress from another woman. I didn’t even tell my sisters, I just made up a story that he’d been transferred to St James and blocked him. 

Tavia, 27:

He was incredibly sweet and thoughtful — with the exception of the cheating. I mean, everytime he would get stationed out of parish, there would be another scandal with a woman. He was good to look at, and he was very romantic, and treated me well, but man, he had zero impulse control when it came to other women, and I just couldn’t risk my sanity and health anymore because police don’t make the kind of money for me to see a therapist or a gynaecologist as often as I’d wanted to, the way this man took me for a fool.