Sorry for the amount of time since my last reply, it was a busy weekend. Let me address some general points, some specific replies, and then the exciting new chapter of this saga.
The girl is 21. I'm 22. I think the Marine might be 19 now. He's 18 or 19.
I agree that I may have come across as overconfident when talking about actually getting in a physical confrontation with this guy. You guys bring up excellent points and I agree that I should not underestimate him. He hasn't been in any real firefights, but neither have I, and that doesn't mean he isn't trained to be. I'm mainly saying that I'm a lot more able to deal with such a situation now than I have been at other times in my life. Like last summer, which I spent on crutches.
I posted the pic on my Facebook and tagged her, making it available for all of her friends to see. He's one of her Facebook friends, so he can see it. That in and of itself doesn't bother me, since I'm still good friends with several of my ex's as well. I also don't have my fb set to private because I've never really had a reason to. So the only information she provided him was fb showing him the pic I tagged her in. I hadn't asked her for his info yet, but did while she was in town and she freely gave it.
With her being out of town til the weekend, and us not being able to come to a quick and easy agreement over the police report thing, we decided to talk about it in person instead of arguing over the phone. So it's not like there were any discussions where she refused to tell me anything between my first and second posts. However, when I asked if she'd go with me to file the report she said no. When I asked if she'd be mad at me if I went and filed it alone she said yes. At that point the decision was made for me to not stick this thing out. Her reasoning, again, was that it could "get him in trouble" and "might make him mad". You guys are right, she doesn't get that this is the result of his actions, and it's not my or her job to protect him from them. Unfortunately we had this discussion right before she was about to head back to Houston for the next two weeks and I didn't have the heart to dump her before she spent 3 hours on the road. I've seen what something like that can do to a girl and I chose to not do it right before she was going to be operating heavy machinery.
stevie_d_64 - As far as notifying his superiors in the military, I don't think I have all the info I need yet. At this point all I have is his first and last name, and the town he's from. I Didn't even mention this to the girl because if she freaked on the police report I know she's not going to go with this. I know she has one of his dog tags in her car somewhere but I didn't get a chance to find it and snag a pic of it. I'll probably try to do this when I go visit her in Houston. Any more advice on how to do this is greatly appreciated.
AndyC - I have plenty of couch space. Couches I don't mind sleeping on if you really wanted to come visit and sleep on a bed. IIRC, you lived in South Africa for a time, and my family and I are from there. So all in all you might really enjoy the trip. Though I'm not sure exactly what you were intending, I took it as a personal guard offer. Feel free to elaborate.
Oldgringo - I realize you and I look at the world in two very different ways. Although I like my way better, your perspective is still enlightening and appreciated. Please don't take this as sarcasm, I mean it sincerely. I think you especially will get a kick out of the next part:
And now for the rest of the story...
As if all the above isn't enough.
So she's been hanging out with a group of friends for the past month or so. Included in this group is a 36-year-old guy she and my ex-room mate met one night at a bar. He was buying everybody drinks, and in exchange they drove him home at the end of the night. Since then he became part of the group and I've hung out with them semi-regularly. Mostly out drinking but also tubing, and other things. Well, the night we were having the good-bye party for my gf since she was going to be in Houston for a couple weeks, the 36-year-old guy said something along the lines of, "I love this girl, if you ever hurt her I'll kill you." I thought nothing of it, like I said, it's a common threat and I've heard it before. I told him something like, "That's fine, I don't mistreat women." He then looked me in the eye, said, "No you don't understand," and repeated it. I figured he was drunk and feeling protective and all that stupid stuff. Well, come to find out, this weekend he told my gf that he went to jail for a few years for a murder charge.
Then when I couldn't make it in time to see the fireworks with her (while she was hanging out with this group of friends) due to a legitimate emergency, he told her, "I have to leave to go smoke pot before your bf (me) gets there otherwise I'll kill him (me)."
This made the ditching her decision that much easier. I'm thinking a police report's in order for it as well. Unlike the marine, this guy's bigger and stronger than I am. Even though she and I talked about it and she understood why I couldn't make it and got over it, he's still mad about it based on what he's been telling my ex-room mate. I think this relationship very easily fits into one of the top 3 worst decisions of my life.
Just curious, does anyone think me breaking up with her is going to make the marine less likely to follow through on the threat?
How about the older gentleman? I think it might make it worse, though that isn't going to change my decision.
) because it would hurt her, but he "wants to talk to me" to "make sure I'll treat her right". Whatever that means. 
