Chapter 7 Chapter VII

I stayed in the hospital in Da Nang for almost two months.As far as a hospital goes, it's not a great place, but the beds we slept in were covered with mosquito nets, and the parquet floors were swept twice a day, which was as good as it gets for the living conditions I'm used to. Talked. There were people in that hospital with much more serious injuries than me.Many poor fellows have missing legs, missing arms, broken hands, broken feet, and some don't know what's missing.Some young men were shot in the stomach, chest and face.It was like a torture zone at night—the guys were crying and screaming and clamoring for their mothers.

There was a guy in the bed next to me named Dan, who was blown up in a tank.He was burned all over and had tubes everywhere, but I never heard him cry out.He was soft-spoken, very gentle, and after a day or so we made friends; Dan was from Connecticut, and he was a history teacher when they took him to the Army.But because he was smart, they sent him to officer school and made him a second lieutenant.Most ensigns I know are as simple-minded as I am, but Dan is different.He had his own philosophy on why we were in Vietnam, which is, our reasons are right, but we may be doing it wrong, or, it’s the other way around, but whatever it is, we’re not doing it right.He, the tank officer, said that in a land that was mostly swamps and mountains, tanks were useless, and it was absurd that we were going to fight in a place like this.I told him about the Babu and he nodded sadly and said that many more Babu would die before the war was over.

After about a week or so, the hospital moved me to a ward where normal patients recuperate, but I would go back to the intensive care unit every day and sit with Dan for a while.Sometimes I play a tune for him on the harmonica, and he likes it very much.My mother sent me a package of Hux's candy that was sent all the way to the hospital, and I wanted to share it with Dan, except he could only eat what was put into him through a catheter. I think the experience of sitting there talking to Dan has had a huge impact on my life.I know I'm not supposed to have a philosophy of my own because I'm an idiot and so on, but that's probably because no one ever took the time to talk to me about it.Dane believes that everything that happens to us, or anything that happens in the world, is governed by the laws of nature that govern the universe.His views on the subject were very mixed, but the gist of his words gradually changed my views on everything.

All my life I don't understand anything around me.One thing happened out of nowhere, then another, and then another, and one after another, mostly without reason.But, Dane says, it's all part of some kind of plan, and the best we can do is figure out how we fit in with that plan and try to stay put.Somehow, knowing this, I began to see things more clearly. All in all, as the days went by and the weeks passed, my body got better and my butt healed quickly.The doctor said my skin was like a "rhinoceros" or something.There was a recreation room in the hospital, and since there wasn't much else to do, one day, I went into the recreation room, and there were two guys playing ping-pong in it.I watched it for a while and asked if they could let me play, and they said yes.I lost the first one or two goals, but after a while I beat them both. "You're really quick for your size," one of them said.I just nodded.I played as much as I could every day and got pretty good at it, believe it or not.

I usually go to see Dan in the afternoon, but in the morning I'm alone.They got me out of the hospital, and there were buses to take a wounded person like me around the city, to buy knickknacks at the Vietnamese shops in Da Nang.However, I don't need those things, so I just walk around and look. There is a small market on the shore of Da Nang, selling fish and shrimp, etc. One day I wandered there, bought some shrimp, and asked the hospital chef to cook it for me. It tasted really good.Wish Dan could have some too.He said if I crushed the prawns maybe they could feed him through a catheter and he said he'd ask the nurse.But, I knew he was just joking.

I lay in the hospital bed that night thinking about Bob and how he would like to eat these shrimp and our shrimp boat and all.Poor Bob.So the next day I asked Dan, why did Bubba die, what the fuck the laws of nature allowed this to happen?He pondered for a long time before saying, "Well, let me tell you, Forrest Gump, we don't like every one of these laws. But it's a law. It's like a tiger killing a monkey in the jungle—it's bad luck for the monkey, right Tigers are a good thing. That's the way things are." Two days later, I went to the fish market again, and there was a small Vietnamese man selling a big bag of shrimps there.I asked him where he got the prawns, and he babbled at me because he didn't know English.In short, I signed like an Indian. He understood after a while and beckoned me to follow him.I was a bit skeptical at first, but he was all smiles and so on, and I went with him.

We walked at least a mile or so past all the boats on the beach, but he didn't take me aboard.The place was in a swamp by the water, a bit like a pond or something, and he had set up barbed wire fences where the tide flooded in when the South China Sea was high tide.This guy is actually raising shrimp there!He took a small net and scooped some water, sure enough, there were a dozen or so shrimps in the net. He gave me some in a pouch, and I gave him a Hux spleen candy.He farts with joy! There was an outdoor movie showing near field headquarters that night, I went to see it, but the guys in the front row got into a fight over something, and one guy was lifted up and thrown on the screen, and the screen was blown through a big hole, and the movie was over up.So, back at the hospital, I was lying in bed—thinking about things, thinking about things, thinking about something.I know what I'm going to do after I get out of the military!

Back home, I'm going to find a small pond near the Gulf of Mexico and raise shrimp!That way, even now that Bob's dead, I can't get a shrimp boat, but I can definitely find a place in the swamp and take the wire down, and that's it.Bob would be happy about it. For the next few weeks, I went to the place where the Vietnamese raised shrimp every morning.His name is Mr. Ji.I sat there every day watching him work, and after a while he taught me how to raise shrimp.He used a small net in a nearby swamp to catch shrimp larvae and dumped them in his pond.When the tide comes in, he throws a whole lot of miscellaneous stuff into the pond - leftovers and stuff that cause little sticky things to grow in the pond and the shrimp eat them It will grow fat and big.It's such an easy job that even an imbecile can do it.

A few days later, a few dirty guys came to the hospital from the field headquarters, and said excitedly: "Soldier Forrest Gump, you have been awarded the Medal of Honor for bravery by Congress, and you will fly back to China the day after tomorrow to accept the U.S. The president personally honors." Well, here it is, it was early in the morning, I was lying in bed, I was going to go to the bathroom, but they were waiting for me to say something, I guess, and I was so anxious to pee Almost burst my pants.But this time I just said "thank you" and then closed my big mouth. Perhaps, this is also one of nature's plans.

Anyway, after they were gone, I went to see Dan in the ICU, but when I got there, his bed was empty, the mattress was folded up, and there was no sign of him.I was so afraid that something might happen to him, so I ran to find the male nurse, but he wasn't there either.I saw a nurse in the hallway and I asked her, "What's up with Dan?" She said he was "gone."I asked, "Where are you going?" She said, "I don't know. I wasn't on duty at the time." I found the head nurse and asked her. She said that Dan Si had been sent back to the United States because she could receive better treatment back home.I asked him how is he doing?She said, "Well, if two perforated lungs, broken intestines, split spine, missing foot, amputated leg, and third-degree burns on half his body are okay, then he's fine." Thank you. She, go away by herself.

I didn't play ping-pong that afternoon because I was so worried about Dan.It occurred to me that he might be dead, but no one would tell, because the next of kin had to be notified first or something.Who knows?With a heavy heart, I wandered around by myself, kicking rocks and tin cans and all. When I finally returned to the ward, there were some letters on the bed, which had been mailed to the hospital.My mother's letter said that our house caught fire and it was completely destroyed, but the house had no insurance and no subsidies, so she had to live in a poor house.She said the fire happened when Miss Flamer had bathed her cat and was drying it with a hair dryer, and the cat caught fire with the hair dryer or something, that's all.She said that in the future, my letters to her will be delivered to the "Sisters' Home for the Poor".I thought to myself, she will have to cry in the future. There was also a letter addressed to me, which read: "Dear Mr. Gan, You have been selected as the winning candidate for a brand new 'Pontiac GTO', provided you return the attached card, guaranteeing the purchase of the A set of fine encyclopedias, and an up-to-date yearbook for seventy-five dollars a year for the rest of my life." I threw the letter into the trash can.What's the use of buying an encyclopedia for an idiot like me, and besides, I can't drive. But the third letter was in my own hand, and on the back of the envelope was written: "Jenny Curran, regular mail, Cambridge, MA." My hands were shaking so badly that I could barely open the envelope. "Dear Gump," the letter read, "my mother has forwarded to me the letter your mother sent her, and I am very sorry to learn that you have to participate in this immoral and cruel war." It must be terrible to live in an environment of killing and mourning. "It must be hard on your conscience to go into this kind of war, but I know the wounds are forced." She also said that life must be hard without clean clothes to wear, fresh food to eat, etc., but she said she did not Know what I meant when I wrote "had to lie in officer shit for two full days". "It's unbelievable," she said, "that even they would make you do something so vulgar." I think I didn't make that part clear enough in my letter. All in all, says Jenny, "we're planning a massive demonstration to protest against the fascist pigs, to stop this immoral and brutal war, and to give voice to everyone." She wrote a whole page about it, saying Roughly the same.But I read it carefully, because just seeing her handwriting was enough to send me flying. "At least," she wrote at the end, "you met Babu, and I know you must be glad to have a friend by your side in one of those painful days." Playing two nights a week with a small band at a coffee shop near Harbin University for a little money, and if I'm ever in the neighborhood, I'll go see her.She said the band was called Cracked Egg.I'll find an excuse to go to Harvard. That night, I packed my things to go home to receive the Medal of Honor and meet the President of the United States.However, I have nothing to pack, only the pajamas, toothbrush and razor provided by the hospital, because my clothes are at the base in Pleiku town. But a good colonel was sent over from Pro HQ, and he said, "Never mind that shit, Gump—we're going to get a dozen or so Vietnamese from Saigon to make you a brand new uniform tonight, Because you can’t go to the president in these pajamas.” The colonel said that he would accompany me all the way to Washington, take care of my board, lodging and transportation, and teach me manners and so on. His name was Colonel Gooch. I played my last ping-pong game that night with a guy from Field Headquarters who was supposed to be the best ping-pong player in the Army or something.He was a lean guy who wouldn't look me in the face, and he had his own racket in a leather case.I beat him up, and he said that table tennis is not good, because the humidity corrodes the ball.He put away his racket and left, which didn't matter to me, because he left behind the ping-pong balls he brought, which the hospital recreation room really needed. The morning before I left, a nurse came into the ward and left a letter with my name on the envelope.I opened the envelope, and it was from Dan, and he was all right.The letter said: Dear Forrest Gump: Unfortunately, we have no time to meet before I leave.The doctor made an impromptu decision, I was sent away without knowing what happened, but before I left, I asked for time to write this short note, because you have been very good to me during my time here . I realized, Forrest Gump, that you are approaching a very important moment in your life. It may be some kind of transformation, or it may be an event that will change the direction of your life. You must seize this moment and don't let it miss you.Looking back now, every now and then there is something in your eye, a little sparkle, probably when you smile, and I believe what I saw was almost the source of the human capacity to think, create, be . This war is not for you, old friend—nor for me—and I'm out of it now, and I'm sure you will soon be too.The key question is, what are you going to do in the future?I don't think you're an idiot at all.Maybe by the yardstick of a test or the judgment of some fool, you fall into a certain category, but inside, Gump, I've seen the spark of curiosity burn in your mind.Go with the flow.My friend, make it work for you, fight against the shoal, never give in, don't give up.You're a good guy, Gump, and you have a big heart. Your friend Dan, I've read Dan's letter a dozen or twenty times, but there are some words in it that I don't understand.I mean, I think I understand what he means, but there are certain sentences and words that I don't understand.Colonel Gooch came in the next morning and said we had to start right away, go to Saigon to get the new uniforms that had been made by twenty Vietnamese last night, and then go back to America right away and so on.I showed him Dan's letter and asked him to tell me what it meant, and Colonel Gooch read it back to me and said, "Well, Gump, I think he's pretty clear, That is, when the president pins you a medal, you must not make a fool of yourself."