9. The News
Obligatory, not me, but a friend. And I’ve posted this story twice before:
In the early 2000s, my friend’s husband was deployed to Iraq. Together, they had a 10-year-old son and a happy marriage. One day, while he was deployed, I was at home when another one of our friends called and screamed, “Holy moly, turn on the news right now!”
I turn it on to watch a human interest story about a fundraiser at a high school 30 miles away. They’re doing Relay for Life or something, and as a “surprise” to one of the participants, they had her “husband” and father of her two-grade school children do a video call from Iraq and display it on the football jumbotron.
There on our local news is my friend’s husband, telling another woman and two kids how he loves them and can’t wait to get back home to them. The news eats it up about what a great guy he is.
That night, our group of friends convened and decided how we would tell her. I was nominated, so the next day, I had to sit her down and tell her what we saw. She called the news station, and they were happy to let her come in and watch the story.
They were also incredibly apologetic.
The story has a somewhat crappy ending, I’m afraid. She called him out on his BS, they started divorce proceedings, and he went on to legally marry the mother of his other kids and mostly ignored his son from the first marriage.