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So I had a lousy day yesterday.

Nobody died, nothing blew up. I got lots of sleep. I even talked with my mom and dad on the phone.

My day was ruined by Facebook.

This new FOB (forward operating base) has a small double-wide trailer full of computers, and seeing as there are not many people here I can almost always get online. Logged on to find my ex, who I dated for over two years, now has a new boyfriend.

It all started because I was bored, so I went to the Book of Odds website and was reading through a piece written by Emily Lodish about meeting her ex-boyfriend's fiancée. The story made me think of my ex, and this led to me surfing over to Facebook and looking her up. I just wanted to see her smiling face again.

She hardly ever updates her Facebook page, and I had just checked before leaving our last base, and I am pretty sure she had been single at that point. It’s a real kick in the balls to find out the only girl you ever loved has someone new... via Facebook.

I can say with a great amount of certainty that our breakup was directly tied to the Army. We had talked about what our plans were post graduation, and at the time I had the option of getting a civilian job and being an officer in the National Guard. We had talked about both finding jobs in the Boston area and living in a quaint little apartment together in Cambridge and maybe taking some grad school classes. We could get a puppy and share a car and grow tomatoes out of a window box that overlooks the back alley. We could find some second-hand furniture on Craigslist and go to weird film screenings and cruise bars and never have to completely leave the ignorant bliss of college life.

But there were problems with this. The US Army wanted its money's worth, and I wanted to do my Lieutenant time in the active duty Army. I won't go into my reasons for avoiding the National Guard, but part of me knew I would only feel fulfilled as an active duty officer. She also wanted to go to grad school at UNC Chapel Hill or NYU and she had the academics to do it. Neither of us wanted to be held back.

We discussed her moving with me to wherever I would be stationed. It was really the only option that would allow us to live together because the Army owns me. She never wanted the Army life. She was a very smart girl (double major in accounting and finance, graduated summa cum laude), which was part of the reason I was so attracted to her. She had aspirations from a young age of graduate school at a great school like an Ivy League and didn't see herself working towards a degree at a local community college in a military town.

Military towns are not exactly classy places. There are wastelands of billboards, gas stations, car dealerships, chain restaurants, pawn shops, gun shops, sex shops... not somewhere she wanted to be. We were together during my time as a cadet, and she hated how the Army owned my life. We were together during my time at officer basic course as well, and it was the strain of the long distance relationship that ultimately led to our breakup. I worked and trained long hours and would often have to be in the field for weeks at a time with no use of a phone. I tried to find a way to be stationed at a base near where she lives, but the Army needed me with a unit that was deploying immediately.

When I saw her Facebook page, my sadness turned to anger. I pictured her sleeping in the bed of another man, making love to another man, kissing him, hugging him, while I sleep alone on a cot clutching my cold, hard rifle. I have been having weird dreams on occasion where she and I are talking to each other about really mundane topics. What sort of soup do we like to have when we are sick? How long does it take to change the oil in a car? I wake up from these dreams thinking "Oh no, I did something wrong! She hates me!" I have no idea why I think this. Then I realize I am in Afghanistan, and for some reason I feel a sense of relief.

Emily writes about meeting her ex's fiancée. I have no clue how I would act if I met this new guy she has. Would he be intimidated by me? I do not strike a particularly imposing figure, but the 99.99 percent of the American public who have never seen combat sometimes think guys like me have a few screws loose. Last time I was in a fistfight was when I was drunk in a bar and I told some obese frat guy he looked like a Teletubby in his purple frat shirt with triangles on it. He laid me out in one hit.

I try not to feel sorry for myself here. It can consume you and manifest itself in other ways. The Army pushes soldiers to quash all sense of self pity. I can still remember my Drill Sergeants, all those years ago in the hot Kentucky sun, yelling "STOP FEELING SORRY FOR YOURSELF!" I don't want to take out my anger on the local populace like so many others have. I also did not want to take out my anger on my soldiers. I do outrank them, but they like to try to annoy me in little ways. It is much like being a parent I guess, although I am not yet a father.

In a way I am glad she has moved on and can find happiness. I guess I need to let go of the fantasy that I will return home and she will be waiting at the airport with all the signs and American flags and tearful children and screaming spouses. But she won't be and that is okay. I am only 24 years old. I still have a lot of life to live.

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