Yep that did it. I placed my anamorphic footage into a regular 4:3 timeline and it forced the letter box out to my external monitors and printed to tape that way. Working this way ensures that people watching on a standard TV will see the footage the way it was intended to be seen and not stretched tall.
I figured out the answer myself (incase anyone does a future search for this). During RAM playback press the space bar and asterix (*) together to pause playhead on exact frame. If you have an actual layer selected it will leave an annoying marker in that place (which might be helpful to some but they just get in the way for me). I really miss the previous versions of AE where this task was simpler 🙁
Using AE 6.5 and 7 I have always been able to pause my RAM preview on the current frame using the space bar, However I just switched to AE CS3 and it jumps back to the first frame that the RAM preview started. What gives?