Malice!

Picture it.

We’re halfway through the MP Olympics (or whatever they called it).

The next event is a back breaker.

“You will pick up your buddy and carry him 100 meters!”

Not too bad, I thought. I was a body builder. A marathon runner. A boxer.

And I’d done it before.

“Oh,” the event coordinator said. “You will have on your ruck with the required sixty-five pounds of weight and so will your buddy. You will have an M-60 machine gun around your neck. And one last thing. You will have two ammo boxes full of sand.”

“Mac,” I said. “How much do you weigh?”

“One ninety,” he answered. That would be Mac in PTs, not with a Kevlar helmet, BDUs, combat boots, and assorted gear.

I did the math. Let’s see. Two rucks at 130 lbs, Mac at 190. Add twenty pounds for his boots, uniform, and gear. That’s 320 lbs. M-60 at 24 lbs. Sand at 40 lbs. I’d be carrying over 400 lbs.

“Let’s do this in a fireman carry,” I said. “You hold onto the ammo boxes. I’ll put the M-60 and my Kevlar on the opposite side to act as a counterbalance.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Mac said.

“When it came out turn,” I positioned the M-60 and m Kevlar the way I wanted. I crouched down and got Mac into a fireman carry and he held onto the ammo boxes.”

“You ready,’ the Captain asked.

We’ll know in a second, I thought, but nodded.

“Go,” he said.

I stood, exploding with my legs up. If I didn’t do it fast, I’d never get up. Still, I could almost hear my legs groan in protest as I did.

I gasped, “Steve Austin! Where are you when I need you?”

I took a step. My knew hurt and it threatened to buckle. I shifted the load and with a grunt took another step.

I’m not going doing, I screamed at myself.

I took another step.

Then another.

I focused on the finish line.

Another step.

I could sprint the hundred yards in less time that takes for me to write about it.

The weight threatened to pitch me face first into the dirt.

Don’t go down.

Another step.

The Captain and the Colonel were walking alongside me. “Damn,” I heard the Colonel say. “He’s like an old plow horse. He just keeps going.”

Somehow, I made it to the finish line, knelt down and let Mac off. “You made that look easy,” the Colonel said.

“He ain’t heavy, Sir. he’s my brother.”

So, what does that have to do with a grudge. You don’t put it down. You trudge on with it, not for a hundred meters but for years and maybe even to the grave.

I did that.

I carried anger and resentment towards one Person for years. He became the focus of it all, the blame for everything wrong in my universe. It never occurred to me that he’d just become the focus of all my anger and hate.

And then one day, I’m talking with my pastor about it and I said something like, “I’ve carried that corpse long enough.”

After a lot of work, I let it go.

Now, here’s the really bizarre piece.

I did some hunting around to see if I could find him.

I found him.

In a military cemetery.

He’d been dead for years.

And I’d spent all the time carrying a grudge towards a man long gone.

Talk about a waste of time and energy.

I had to spend some real time on my knees over that one.