Jenny and Running.

When I returned home, I decided to focus all of my time on becoming a Shrimp Boat Captain, especially in honor of Bubba. I found a boat and when someone told me it was unsafe to have a boat without a name, I named it Jenny. Lieutenant Dan soon came to me and kept his word by becoming my first mate on the shrimp boat. For a while, the two of us had no luck at all. But, after a hurricane hit, we were one of the only boats left and we were surprised to find loads of fish on our boat. The two of us became very successful with our own company named “Bubba Gump Shrimp”. Later, I home to visit my mother who was passing away from cancer, leaving the company to Lieutenant Dan. Jenny soon comes home and moves in with me and we spend time together. I asked her to marry me, but she said no. I told her I loved her and by the end of the night, she said it back. She left in the morning, without my knowledge. Not being able to cope with this loneliness, I began to run. I ran across the country. I ran and didn’t stop.

Medal to Ping-Pong

After returning from Vietnam, I was invited to Washington D.C. where I received the Medal of Honor. While in Washington, the President asked me questions about my time spent in Vietnam. One of those questions included the location of my gunshot wound. Because I was a little slow, I innocently dropped my pants right there in front of everyone. After I had left the presence of the President, I found myself among a group of anti-war veterans where I ran into Jenny. Jenny had recently become a hippie and found herself a successful boyfriend from Berkeley. I had been watching them argue right there in front of me when I saw the new boyfriend hit Jenny. That’s when I started to beat him up. This allowed Jenny and I to spend some time together talking about our achievements and experiences and it gave me the chance to give Jenny the Medal of Honor that I had received. Seeing Jenny and receiving the Medal of Honor weren’t my only interests during these times, I had also taken up Ping-Pong during my stay in the hospital. Once I had recovered, I was sent to help other patients play Ping-Pong instead of returning to Vietnam. I later went to China and came back with the title of a “famous hero”. When I returned, I met up with Lieutenant Dan and had a chance to talk to him. He was still quite bitter and highly interested in alcohol. I told him about my plan with Bubba to become a Shrimp Boat Captain. He simply laughed at me and jokingly told me that if I ever succeeded, he would be my first mate.

Getting to College and the Army.

While Forrest was in high school, he still had bullies. One time, though, the bullies helped him more than they hurt him. As he was running away from a group of bullies he interrupted the football practice by sprinting across the field at an incredibly fast speed. This impressed the coach, who gave Forrest a spot on the team. Needless to say, Forrest led the team to many victories, which earned him a scholarship to the University of Alabama for football. At Forrest’s graduation, an army recruiter approached him and encouraged him to join. Forrest did, and on the bus ride there, he met Bubba, his soon-to-be best friend. After being involved in drills for a while, Forrest learns that he is being deployed to Vietnam. Here, Bubba and Forrest meet their Lieutenant, Dan. During an ambush of Lieutenant Dan, Forrest, and Bubba, and the rest of the men in their platoon, many were injured. Forrest becomes scared and runs away but soon turns around after becoming concerned for Bubba. He finds Bubba, who is slowly dying. After Bubba said his final words, Forrest went on to find Lieutenant Dan and then carried him back to safety. Forrest was then shot in the rear end and taken to an army hospital, where Lieutenant Dan was, to recover. Lieutenant Dan was angry with Forrest for “cheating him out of his destiny” and forcing him to now live as a crippled. Forrest, on the other hand, just wanted to save his Lieutenant’s life.

Childhood of Forrest Gump

As one of the slowest kids in my small Alabama town, both physically and mentally, growing up was hard for me. To add to this, my father was never around and my mom put it as “on vacation”, one that he would never return from. I wasn’t very accepted by other children in my school, except for Jenny Curran, who had a hard life as well. When she was five years old, her mother passed away and her father was an alcoholic who abused and molested his children, but not Jenny after she was taken to live with her grandmother. To get back to the physical slowness, I had extremely strong legs, but a crooked spine which caused me to have to wear leg braces for the majority of my childhood and teenage years. The most relieving feeling, though, happened on the day that a group of bullies on bikes chased me down. Jenny told me to run and I did just that. I kept hearing Jenny yell run and as I struggled to run faster and faster my leg braces fell off my legs and I was sprinting like no other. From then on, running was my thing.