Chapter 5 chapter Five

After the "Orange Cup" game, the Department of Physical Education issued my grades for the previous semester. It didn't take long before Coach Blyth asked me to go to his office.I walked in and he looked sullen. "Forrest," he said, "I can understand your English giving up, but I'll never for the life of me understand how you could get an A in something like 'Intermediate Optics' and an F in Physical Education— —You were just named 'Southeast Valuable College Linebacker'!" It's a long question, and I don't want to tire Coach Bryce, but why should I know the distance between two goalposts on the pitch?Well, Coach Blythe is looking at me sadly. "Forrest," he said, "I'm so sorry I have to tell you this, but there's nothing I can do to help you get kicked out of school."

I just stood there, twisting my hands.It took a while to suddenly understand what he said - I can no longer play.I have to leave college.Maybe never see another player in this lifetime.Maybe never see Jenny again.I have to move out of my basement, and I won't be able to take "Advanced Optics" next semester, which Professor Hawke said I could finish.I didn't realize it, but tears started to well up in my eyes.I didn't say a word, I just stood there with my head down. The coach stood up and came over and put his arms around me. He said, "Forrest, it's all right, boy. When you came here, I expected this to happen. But I told them, give me that kid for a season—that's all I asked. Well, Ah Gan, we had an awesome season.

That's for sure.Also, it's not your fault that 'Snake Man' threw the ball out of bounds on the fourth attack..." I just looked up and saw tears in the coach's eyes, and he was staring at me. "Forrest," he said, "there's never been a player like you in this school, and there ain't ever will be. You play very well." Then the coach went and stood at the window, looked out the window, and said, "Good luck, kid—now get the hell out of there with your stupid ass." In this way, I had to leave the university. I went back to the basement to pack my bags.Bob came downstairs and he had two cans of beer, one for me.I've never drank beer, but I can understand why men have this habit.

Babu accompanied me out of the "ape dormitory".As a result, all the players of the team stood outside. They were very silent, and "Snake Man" came up to shake my hand and said, "Forrest, I'm so sorry that the pass went bad, eh?" I said, "It's okay, Snake Man, it's all right." And they One by one they came over to shake my hand, even Curtis, who was in a brace from the neck down because he knocked down too many doors in the Apes' Dorm. Bob said he'd carry my luggage to the station, but I said I'd rather go alone. "Keep in touch," he said.Anyway, on the way to the station, I passed the Student Union, but it wasn't a Friday, and Jenny's band wasn't playing, so I told myself fuck it, and got on the bus home.

Late at night, the bus arrived in Mubier.I didn't tell my mother what happened, because I knew she would be sad, so I walked home, but the light in her room was on, and when I walked in, she was crying with snot and tears, and told me Exactly the same as in memory.It turned out that she told me that the U.S. Army had learned that I was expelled from school. On the same day, my mother received a notice to report to the U.S. Army Recruitment Office.Had I had the foresight, I would never have allowed myself to be fired. after a few days.My mother took me to the conscription office.She's got me a lunch box in case I get hungry on the road.There were about a hundred people standing outside the conscription office, and four or five buses were waiting.A big old soldier was yelling at everyone, and Mom came over and said, "I don't see how you can draft him—because he's an idiot." But the old soldier just looked at her, and said, "Ugh, ma'am , Who do you think these other people are? Einstein?" He continued yelling.It wasn't long before he was yelling at me too.I got on the bus and left with everyone.

Been yelled at since I got out of the fool school--Coach Fellers, Coach Blythe, and the thug trainers, the Army guys now.But let me say this: Those in the army yell longer, louder, and harsher than the rest.They are never happy.Also, they don't blame you for being stupid or stupid like the coaches-they are more interested in your private parts or bowel movements, because the beginning of every yell must be "cock head" or "asshole" What.Sometimes I can't help but wonder if Curtis was in the army before he played American football. Anyway, after about a hundred hours on the bus, we got to Fort Benning, Georgia, and all I could think about was twenty-five to three, the score we beat the Georgia Dogs.The conditions in the barracks were actually only slightly better than the "ape dorms", but the food was not - terrible, but plentiful.

Other than that, life for the next few months was all about following orders and being yelled at.They taught us how to shoot, throw grenades, and crawl.Outside of these workouts, we were either running errands or cleaning toilets and stuff like that.One of my most vivid memories of Fort Benning is that no one there seemed to be smarter than I was, which was a real relief. Shortly after I arrived, I was sent to serve as a cook because I accidentally shot a hole through a water tower during target practice.I got to the kitchen and the cook was sick or something.Someone pointed at me and said, "Forrest Gump, you will be the cook today."

"What should I cook?" I asked. "I've never cooked before." "Never mind it," someone said. "This is not the Palace of Sanssouci." "Why don't you make a one-pot stew?" said another. "It's easier to make." "What's the stew?" I asked. "Look at the refrigerator and pantry," the guy said. "Throw whatever you see into the pot and let it cook." "What if it doesn't taste good?" I asked. ' "Who cares. Have you eaten anything good here tonight?" On that, he was right.

Uh, I started to get everything out of the refrigerator and pantry.There were cans of tomatoes, beans, and peaches, and bacon, and rice, and bags of flour, and potatoes, and a whole bunch of stuff I didn't recognize.I put the food all together and said to one of the guys, "What am I going to cook with?" "There are some pans in the cupboard," he said.But when I opened the cupboard, I saw that there was only a small pot inside, definitely not enough to feed two hundred men in the company. "Why don't you ask the platoon leader?" someone said. "He went to do field training." Someone replied.

"It's hard work," said one fellow, "but they're going to be starving when they get back, so you'd better figure it out." "How about this?" I asked.There was a huge thing about six feet high and five feet wide sitting in the corner. "That thing? That's a goddam boiler. You can't cook anything in it." "Why?" I said. "Well, I don't know either. Anyway, I wouldn't cook with it if you were me." "It's hot and has water in it," I said. "Do what you want," said someone, "we've got other shit to do."

So, I used a steamer.I opened all the cans, peeled all the potatoes, and threw in all the meat I could find, plus onions and carrots, and poured in a dozen or twenty bottles of ketchup, mustard, and so on.After about an hour or so, you can smell the stew. "How's dinner going?" someone asked after a while. "Let me try it," I said. I opened the lid of the pot, and the whole thing inside was bubbling and boiling, and from time to time I would see an onion or potato floating on the surface and spinning around. "Let me try it," one guy said.He took a tin cup and spooned out some stew. "Well, it's not ready yet," he said. "You better heat up. Those guys will be back any minute." So I heated up the boiler, and sure enough, the soldiers of the whole company came back from the field one after another.You can hear them bathing, changing and getting ready for dinner in the barracks.Before long, they entered the restaurant one after another. But the stew wasn't done yet.I tried it again and some of the ingredients were still raw.People in the restaurant started humming and complaining.Soon it became chanting sutras in unison, and I reheated the steamer. After half an hour or so, they started beating the table with knives and forks, like a prison riot. I knew I had to think of something quickly, so I heated the boiler to the limit. I was sitting there looking at the boiler, all nervous, when all of a sudden the Master Chief slammed open the kitchen door. "What the hell is going on?" he asked. "Where's the supper for these brothers?" "Alright, Master Chief," I said.At about the same time, the boiler began to vibrate and shake.Steam rose from the side, and a pot foot shook off the floor. "What's this?" asked the Master Chief. "You're cooking in a boiler?" "It's dinner." I said.A very surprised expression appeared on the Master Chief's face.But in the blink of an eye, he showed a very apprehensive expression again, just like the expression just before a car accident, and then the boiler exploded. I don't remember what happened next.I just remember it blowing off the roof of the restaurant and blowing all the doors and windows. The dishwashing guy was knocked out of the wall, and the dish stacking guy flew into the air, sort of like "Rocket Man." The Master Chief and I, somehow, we both survived miraculously, like they say getting too close to a grenade won't hurt you.We both had all our clothes blown up, though, except for the chef's hat I was wearing at the time.Also, we've got big cauldrons all over us, and it looks like two—well, I can't tell—anyway, it's weird. Unbelievably, those guys sitting in the restaurant were all safe and sound, just covered in cauldrons, sitting there as if they had been frightened by a bombing—however, the explosion made them shut their crow mouths and never Noisy about when dinner will be ready. Suddenly, the company commander rushed into the barracks. "What's that sound!" he roared. "What's the matter?" He looked at both of us, and shouted, "Sergeant Kranz, is that you?" "Forrest Gump - Boiler - Bingcai!" said the Master Chief.Then he seemed to regain his composure and grabbed a meat cleaver from the wall. "Forrest Gump-steamer-stew!" he screamed, and came after me with a meat cleaver.I sprinted out the door and he chased me around the field, even through the officers' clubhouse and the parking lot.However, I ran faster than him, because this is my specialty, but; friend, I tell you: I have no doubts in my heart, this time I can't eat and walk around. One night in the fall, the barracks phone rang, and it was Bubba.He said they had stopped giving him athletic scholarships because his foot injury was worse than they thought, so he was leaving school too.But, he asked me if I could get away and go to Birmingham to watch the varsity play those ass eggs in Mississippi State.But that Saturday I was in solitary; since the boiler explosion, I have been in solitary every weekend for almost a year.Anyway, I couldn't leave the camp, so I cleaned the toilet while listening to the radio. At the end of the third quarter, the score was very close, and the Snake Man was having a big day, and we narrowly won 28-37, but the Mississippi asses got a touchdown with a minute to go.In the blink of an eye, we had only one chance to attack, and there was no timeout.I silently pray that "Snake Man" doesn't make the same mistakes as "Orange Bowl", which is to throw the ball out of bounds on the fourth down and lose the game.But in the end, he actually played a lantern with his nephew. My heart sank to the bottom.But suddenly the cheers were so loud that people couldn't hear what the broadcaster said at all. After the shouting quieted down, they could hear what was going on.It turned out that "Snake Man" pretended to pass an out-of-bounds ball to stop the clock, but in fact he passed the ball to Curtis for a touchdown.This trick can make people understand how old and cunning Coach Brian is.He figured those Mississippi asses would be stupid enough to think we'd be stupid enough to repeat the same mistakes. I was so happy to win the game, but I couldn't help but wonder if Jenny was watching the game and if she thought of me. I don't care if I thought about it or not, because we'll be on the ship in a month.We've been trained like robots for almost a year, and now we're going on the Long March.This is not an exaggeration.We were going to Vietnam, but what they said there was not half as bad as what we suffered in the camp.However, it turned out that this statement was an exaggeration. We arrived in Vietnam in February and took a bullock cart from Quy Nhon on the South China Sea to Pleiku in the central highlands.The journey is still smooth, and the scenery is pleasant and interesting, with patches of banana trees and palm trees, and small South Asians working in the rice fields.The pro-American Vietnamese are really friendly and waved to us. We can see Pleiku from a distance almost half a day's drive away, because there is a large cloud of red soil and dust stagnant above that place.The shanties are scattered on the outskirts of the town, worse than the worst huts I have seen in Alabama, the residents huddled under the lean-to huts, they have no teeth, the children have no clothes to wear, basically, They are like beggars.After arriving at the brigade headquarters and the base, the environment is not too bad, except for the red dust.We can't see any fighting situation, and the camp area is clean and tidy. As far as the eye can see, there are only rows of tents, and the surrounding sand and soil are neatly raked. It really doesn't look like there is a battle going on.We were literally back in Fort Benning. Anyway, they said the reason it was quiet was because the Vietnamese were starting a new year - called "Ted" or something - so there was a ceasefire.We all breathed a sigh of relief, because we were scared enough.However, the tranquility did not last long. After we settled in, they told us to go to the Brigade Headquarters shower room to clean up.The brigade headquarters shower room is actually just a shallow pit dug in the ground, with three or four trucks parked next to it with large water tanks. We were ordered to fold up our uniforms and put them on the side of the pit, then enter the pit, and they would water us to bathe. Still, it wasn't a bad deal, since we hadn't showered for almost a week and we already stink.It was just getting dark, and we were enjoying the flushing of the water pipes in the pit, etc., suddenly there was a strange sound in the air, and the guy who watered us shouted: "Here we come." As he said, the people on the edge of the pit hurried away All gone.We stood naked in the pit, looking at me, I looked at you, and then there was a huge explosion not far away, followed by another, and everyone immediately shouted and cursed, desperately looking for clothes.Bombs exploded all around us, and someone yelled, "Down!" which was absurd, because we were lying at the bottom of the pit by now, more like worms than human beings. One of the bombs went off and fragments flew into the bath pit, and a couple of guys on the other side were hurt, screaming and screaming, clutching at their wounds bleeding.Apparently a bath pit is not a safe place to hide.Sergeant Kranz suddenly appeared on the edge of the pit, and he ordered us to get out of the pit and follow him.Taking advantage of the short interval of the explosion, we desperately escaped from the bath pit.I turned over to the edge of the pit and looked at the ground, my God!There are four or five guys lying on the ground who just watered us.They were out of shape—a whole mess, as if they had been stuffed into a cotton bale.I have never seen a dead person, it was the most horrible experience in my life, never before or since! Sergeant Kranz motioned us to crawl forward with him, and we obeyed, we must be a spectacle if you look down from a high altitude!About one hundred and fifty big men, all naked buttocks, lined up in a long line and wriggled on the ground. There's a row of foxholes around there, and Sergeant Kranz put three or four of us in one.But as soon as I was in the pit, I found that I would rather stay in the bath pit.These stragglers were waist-deep with stinking rainwater.All kinds of moths, snakes and insects are jumping and wriggling in the pit. The bombing continued all night and we had to stay in the foxholes without dinner.Towards daybreak, when the bombardment slowed down, we were ordered to get out of the foxholes, get our clothes and weapons, and prepare to attack. Since we were still recruits, there wasn't really much to do—they didn't even know where to put us, so they sent us to guard the south side of the camp.That is, near the officers toilet.But that place was almost worse than a foxhole, because a school bomb hit a latrine and blew up nearly five hundred pounds of officer shit all over the place. We stayed there all day, no breakfast, no lunch, and in the evening the Viet Cong started shelling again, and we had to lie on the shit.Look, that's disgusting. Finally, someone remembered that we might be hungry and sent a pile of dry food.I got cold ham and eggs, dated 1951 on the tin.All kinds of rumors are flying.Some people say that the Vietnamese army has controlled the town of Plaiku.Some people also said that the Vietnamese army had mastered an atomic bomb and attacked us with incendiary bombs to make us take it lightly.Some people even said that it was not the Vietnamese army attacking us at all, but the Australians, the Dutch or the Norwegians.I thought to myself that it didn't matter who attacked.Fuck his rumours. Anyway, after the first day, we started to make ourselves a habitable place on the south side of the camp.We dug foxholes and built ourselves cabins out of cardboard and tin from the officers' toilets.However, the opponent has never attacked here, and we have not seen a single Vietnamese army to shoot back.I guess they're probably smart enough not to attack the toilet.But three in a row.Four nights the Vietcong bombarded us, and finally one morning when the shelling stopped, Major Bowes, the battalion star officer, crawled up to our company commander and said we had to go north to support another brigade unit stuck in the jungle. After a while, Platoon Leader Hope asked us to "saddle up" and we immediately stuffed our rations and hand grenades into our pockets as best we could - which actually created a dilemma, since the grenades could not be eaten, but they might be needed .Anyway, they put us on the helicopter.We're off again. The helicopter has not yet landed, and it can be seen what kind of bird situation the 3rd Brigade has fallen into.All kinds of gunpowder smoke rose from the jungle, and large pieces of the ground were blown away.We hadn't even landed before they started shooting.They blew up one of our helicopters in the air, and it was a horrible scene, those people were on fire and there was nothing we could do. I carried machine gun ammo because they thought I was big enough to carry a lot, and before we started the other two guys were asking if I'd mind bringing them some grenades so they could pack more dry food.I agreed.It doesn't matter to me.At the same time, Sergeant Kranz ordered me to carry a ten-gallon bucket weighing fifty pounds.Then, just before departure, Daniel, who was carrying the machine gun tripod, was too nervous to walk, so I had to pick up the tripod again.Add it all up, and I'm carrying a big Nebraska corn grower.But this isn't American football. At sundown we were ordered up a ridge to rescue Charlie Company, which was either trapped by the Viet Cong, or trapped by the Viet Cong, depending on how you got your news from The Star-Spangled Banner.Or purely by the sight of the tragedy. In any case, after we climbed the ridge, the shells flew together, and there were a dozen seriously injured people moaning and screaming there, and there were all kinds of noises from all directions, no one could hear what was what, I squatted low .Trying to get his load of dynamite, buckets, tripods, and his stuff to Charlie Company's position, and was trying to get across a ditch when one guy in the ditch said to another guy, "Look at that big guy— —he’s like Frankenstein,” I was about to retort, because it was dire enough even if no one was making fun of you—but then, shit!One of the guys in the trench suddenly jumped up and yelled, "Gump—Forrest. Gump!" Jesus, it's Bob. Long story short, it turns out that Bob's foot injury, while too severe to play American football, didn't stop him from being sent halfway around the world on behalf of the U.S. Army.Anyway, I dragged my tired ass and—heavy weight to where I was supposed to be, and passed the factory—Bub came up after a while.So, take advantage of the bombing interval (every time our plane appears, the bombing stops).Bob and I catch up. he told me.He heard that Jenny dropped out of school and went out to a demonstration with a group of anti-war people.He also said that Curtiss beat up the campus police officer one day for getting a parking ticket, and he was kicking the officer rolling around the campus when the police showed up, wrapped Curtiss in a giant net, and He dragged away.Babb said Coach Brian had Curtis run fifty extra laps of the field after practice. Oh, Curtis is still the same.