Life is like a box of chocolates.

I found the head nurse and asked her, and she said Dan has been flown back to America on account of they can take better care of him there. I asked her if he is okay, and she said, 'Yeah, if you can call two punctured lungs, a severed intestine, spinal separation, a missing foot, a truncated leg, and third degree burns over half the body okay, then he is just fine. I thanked her, and went on my way.

Bubba then grabbed a hold of my leg and his eyes got all cloudy and that terrible pink sky seem to drain all the colour in his face. He was trying to say something, and so I bent over real close to hear what it was. But I never could make it out. So I asked the medic, ' You hear what he say?' And the medic say, 'Home. He said, home.' Bubba, he died, and that's all I got to say about that.

At dawn, they call in a napalm airplane, but it drop the shit damn near right on top of us. Our own fellers be all signed and burnt up - come running out into the open, eyes big as biscuits, everybody cussing and sweating and scared, woods set on fire, damn near put the rain out!

After a while, they start landing some relief in helicopters, and I guess the napalm bomb have frightened away the gooks. They must of figured that if we was willing to do that to ourselves, then what the hell would we of done to them? They taking the wounded out of there, when along come Sergeant Kranz, hair all singed off, clothes burnt up, looking like he just got shot out of a cannon.

There was some people hurt far worst than I was in that hospital, let me tell you. Poor old boys with arms and legs and hands and who knows what else missing. Boys what had been shot in their stomach and chests and faces. At night the place sound like a torture chamber - them fellers be howling and crying and calling for their mamas.

There was a guy next to my cot name of Dan, who had been blowed up inside a tank. He was all burnt and had tubes going in and out of him everyplace, but I never heard him holler. He talk real low and quiet, and after a day or so, him and me got to be friends. Dan came from the state of Connecticut, and he was a teacher of history when they grabbed him up and threw him into the Army. But because he was smart, they sent him to officer school and made him a lieutenant. Most of the lieutenants I know were about as simple minded as me, but Dan was different. He had his own philosophy about why we were here, which was that we were doing maybe the wrong thing for the right reasons, or vice-versa, but whatever it is, we ain't doing it right. Him being a tank officer and all, he say it ridiculous for us to be waging a war in a place where we can't hardly use our tanks on account of the land is mostly swamp or mountains. I told him about Bubba and all, and he nod his head very sadly and said there will be a lot more Bubbas to die before this thing is over.

Bullets an stuff be flying all over. It is something I simply cannot understand - why in hell is we doing all this, anyway? Playing football is one thing. But this, I do not know why. Goddamn.

I have suffered a loss, Forrest, far greater than my legs. It's my spirit, my soul, if you will. There is only a blank there now - medals where my soul used to be.

One day we found them. They must of been holding a gook convention or something, cause it seem like the same sort of deal as when you step on a anthill and they all come swarming around.

It commenced raining one day and did not stop for two months. We went through ever different kind of rain they is, cep'n maybe sleet or hail. It was little tiny stinging rain sometimes, an big ole fat rain at others. It came sidewise an straight down an sometimes even seem to stand up from the ground. Nevertheless, we was expected to do our shit, which was mainly walking upland down the hills an stuff looking for gooks.

Let me say this: being an idiot is no box of chocolates. People laugh, lose patience, treat you shabby. Now they say folks supposed to be kind to the afflicted, but let me tell you this - it ain't always that way. Even so, I got no complaints, cause I reckon I done live a pretty interesting life, so to speak.

Things is very primitive in the jungle - no place to shit, sleep on the ground like an animal, eat out of cans, no place to take a bath or nothing, clothes is all rotting off.

I think that sitting there talking to Dan was a thing that had a great impression on my life. I know that being an idiot and all, I ain't supposed to have no philosophy of my own, but maybe it's just because nobody never too the time to talk to me about it. It was Dan's philosophy that everything that happen to us, or for that matter, to anything everywhere, is controlled by natural laws that govern the universe. His views were extremely complicated, but the gist of what he said begun to change my whole outlook on things.

So the next day I asked Dan how is it that Bubba can get killed, and what kind of half assed nature law would allow that. He thought about it for a while, and said, 'Well, I'll tell you, Forrest, all of these laws are not specially pleasing to us. But there is laws nonetheless. Like when a tiger pounce on a monkey in the jungle - bad for the money, but good for the tiger. That is just the way it is.

I got to tell you, that if it weren't for that harmonica music, i might of just packed up and gone home, but it made me feel so good, I can hardly describe it. Sort of like my whole body is the harmonica and the music give me goosebumps when I play it.

I get a letter once a week from my mama. She say everything fine at home.. I write her back too, when I can, but what I'm gonna tell her that won't start her bawling again? So I just say we is having a nice time and everybody treating us fine.

Dear Forrest, I am sorry there was no time for us to speech other before I left. The doctors made their decision quickly, and before I knew it, I was being taken away, but I asked if I could stop long enough to write you this note, because you have been so kind to me whileI was here. I sense, Forrest, that you are on the verge of something very significant in your life, some change, or event that will move you in a different direction, and you must seize the moment, and not let it pass. When I think back on it now, there is something in your eyes, some tiny flash of fire that comes now and then, mostly when you smile, and , on those infrequent occasions, I believe what I saw was almost a Genesis of our ability as humans to think, to create, to be. This war is to for you, old pal - nor me - and I am well out of it as I'm sure you will be in time. The crucial question is, what will you do? I don't think you're an idiot at all. Perhaps by the measure of tests or the judgement of fools, you might fall into some category or other, but deep down, Forrest, I have seen that glowing sparkle of curiosity burning deep in your mind. Take the tide, my friend, and as you are carried along, make it work for you, fight the shallows and the snags and never give up. You are a good fellow, forrest, and you have a big heart. Your pal, Dan

If your gonna screw up, do it while you're young. Older you get, the harder it is to bounce back.

I don't know if mama was right, that we each have a destiny, or if if was Lt Dan, that we are all just floating around, accidental, like on a breeze, but I think... I think... maybe... it's both happening at the same time.

All my life, I ain't understand shit about what was going on. A thing just happen, then something else happen, then something else, an so on, and half the time nothing making any sense. But Dan say it is all part of a scheme of some sort, and the best way we can get along is figure out how we fit into the scheme, and then try to stick to our place. Somehow knowing this, things get a good bit clearer for me.