The Power of Forgiveness

1stSgt William Bodette

           “Gentleman, I wake up every day with a smile on my face”, drawled out 1sgt William Bodette to our company. He paused a second to spit a stream of tobacco juice on the ground before continuing with a smirk on his face.  “And I suppose you wonder why’s I wake up this way” He scanned our company with that steel  look in his eye before continuing.  “Its cuz every day I wake up knowing that God put me on this earth specifically to take human life.  That’s my sole purpose gents, and it’s my only purpose in life.” He stopped to shift his rifle and point towards the looming mountains in the distance. “So think about that thought when things get hard on this little hump of ours. You got 1o mikes to prep, we’re stepping in 15.” He strode off. Cole leaned in towards me. “This is going to be a straight up death march.” And it was.

          1sgt William Bodette is a living, breathing war hero in the Marine Corps. He has spent more time in the Corps than I have been alive on this earth, and with 6 combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan to say he has combat experience is an understatement. There is a jagged scar that twists down from the side of his mouth, down to his neck that he got in combat. There are always Marines that I encounter where I think to myself, "The Taliban or Al-Queda really don't know who they are messing with, I'm SO glad he's on my team."  1st Sgt. Bodette is one of those individuals. If you think I'm lying, google his name. he's a big deal.



 

True to his word, the hump was hell on earth. There’s a difference between hiking and humping. Hiking is for leisure. You stop, take breaks, and enjoy the view. Not so with humping. You move with speed and purpose. It’s a test of will. Almost like a power walk but you’re loaded down with gear. That hump will remain the most difficult hump I have ever done or will do in my life.  The California Mountain range we were climbing physically and mentally destroyed our company. Every time we thought we had crested the final ridge, another ridge line appeared in the distance. The mountains kept going up higher and higher stretching further and further.  Two and a half hours into the hump, the straps on my 75 lbs. pack had dug into my shoulders making my arms go numb. “Well, that’s one less thing to worry about,” I thought. Truth was I was in misery. The mountain seemed to go straight up, creating a gradual increasing strain on my back and a slow burn in my legs. I glanced around. Pain reflected in every sweaty face. Marines soon started dropping out like flies. I looked over. One junior Marine struggled to carry his weight beside me. I knew what I had to do. “Hey, strap the baseplate to the back of my pack.” Relief filled the younger Marine’s face as he gratefully added the weight to my pack. My misery turned to agony. But if there is one thing I take pride in, it’s my ability to hump a pack. I’ll go forever; it's simply a matter of putting one foot in front of the other. Another Marine behind me was ready to drop out. “Hey,” I screamed at him, “Don’t quit! Grab on to the back of my pack, and let’s go!!!!” In reality I didn’t know how much further I could go myself. I looked over at Cole and Caterina for some mental reassurance and saw the same pain deep in their eyes. "Are we going to make it?" I wondered. We all did, but by the end of our day's hump, our company was stretched out over a quarter mile. It truly was a death march. I had been pushed physically and mentally past what I thought I could accomplish multiple times. The Marine who held onto the back of my pack the entire way thanked me as he limped off to sit down. “Mehari, I owe you,” he then looked down at his feet, and then back at me. In pain he smirked, "Think you can help me with these?" I already knew the drill. I took my K-bar knife out from my pack and cut his bootlaces off. His feet were so swollen from the weight he carried; he couldn’t get his boots off.


 


 

No one likes carrying weight.  It’s heavy, painful, and burdensome.  I think back to the physical weight I carried on the day I humped up the mountains.  No matter how slow or fast I walked, the weight followed me, firmly strapped on.  In fact I got so used to the weight that my body actually adjusted to it without me even knowing. It’s the same way in life as well. Some of us have baggage from our past that we carry around like a weight strapped to us.  Some of us walked around with this weight for so long that it is firmly entrenched within our lives without us even realizing it.  As we accrue this weight, it begins to control how we act, move, and look at life.  We begin to react from encounters and situations based off of this weight that we have collected. We begin to be defensive against people, shutting out those who actually do care and in turn, it drags us down and hinders us from being free.  In some instances it controls every aspect of our lives.

Those “some of us” sentences written in the above paragraph are directed at no one other than myself. I recently realized I was operating out of my hurt for a long time. I was carrying weight around that I really had no business to be still carrying around. It was preventing me from moving forward freely. Sometimes the burden of hurt shapes to yourself, and you begin to hold onto those things. I realized I was self-inflicting myself, and as a result I was walking around with a “chip” on my shoulder.

I began to seek out people where we had hurt each other. It was a long list, and I was shocked by the time I was finished writing it. Things with people ranged from simple misunderstandings to deep, entrenched hurt on both sides.  Let me tell you that there is NOTHING more frightening personally for me than confronting people who have either hurt me, or I them.  I would rather just say nothing, deal with it, and move on. I guess it was similar to the pain of having a bone healing improperly and the docs have to break it all over again to set it right. That’s exactly what I had to do. Some people accepted my apology; some wanted nothing to do with an apology.

 

Yet I walked away from it all free. I physically felt as if weights had fallen off my back. There is nothing more freeing than the words “I forgive you,” or asking for forgiveness. There truely is power in forgiveness.
 The more you can forgive, the more you can step closer to what you were truly called to live. A life lived in its full and deepest meaning...