History Fridge / ForrestGump

-->'''Forrest''': (telling Jenny about his Medal of Honor.) I got it just by doing what you told me to do.

* In relation to the above, recall the expository scene in the bush when Forrest relates the names of his fellow soldiers: "Dallas" (from Phoenix), "Cleveland" (from Detroit) and "Tex" (he didn't remember where Tex was from). Most viewers probably chalked this up to Forrest being... [[CloudCuckooLander Forrest]], but remember that earlier scene, when Lt. Dan first meets Forrest and Bubba- he comments "So you boys are from Arkansas, huh?"- right after they told him they were from Alabama. Lt. Dan just might have a propensity for misremembering where people are from, so he probably did the same to "Dallas", "Cleveland" and "Tex", and Forrest and the rest just went with it, not looking to correct and possibly offend their commanding officer.

* Forrest's BerserkButton is anyone harming Jenny. He's also one track-minded to a fault. The punches he threw at the strip club before he deployed to Vietnam were pretty mild. The ones he laid into the guy at the Black Panther gathering after he returned from the war were devastating. If Jenny hadn't intervened, would he have stopped before killing the guy?

* While we don't get to hear Forrest's speech at the National Mall, we see that whatever he's said is enough to bring the whole crowd to tears.[[note]]WordOfGod states that his actual speech was, "Sometimes when people go to Vietnam, they go home to their mommas without any legs. Sometimes they don't go home at all. That's a bad thing. That's all I have to say about that."[[/note]] It's entirely possible that the crowd is not weeping over what he ''said,'' but because he is plainly intellectually challenged, they may have assumed that he sustained his mental handicap ''in'' Vietnam--that this is how ''he'' returned home.

* Forrest is a simple minded fellow, but he is good at one thing: '''following orders'''. Jenny told him to run as a kid, and he ran so fast he broke right through his leg braces. She told him to run if he encountered danger at Vietnam, and again he outran the entire ambush. His drill sergeant told him to disassemble his weapon, and Forrest took it apart so fast he set a new company record. Why? "[Because] you told me to, Drill Sergeant?" How did Forrest get so good at ping-pong? Because the soldier who introduced it to him told him just to never take his eye off the ball. It's the reason why Forrest found the Army so easy, because all he ever had to do was follow their orders. So while he may be handicapped in thinking for himself in life, give Forrest a command to do and he will do it to the highest of human potential.

** However, there is a contradiction to this. Lt. Dan told Forrest to leave him in the jungle, as he was planning to die out in the field. Forrest may follow orders, but knows when to make a decision that's important when it comes to someone else's life.
* When they were showing Jenny about to jump off her balcony and she stopped herself. The next scene we see her in is when she reunites with Forrest at his house. Her life was a living hell, due to her abusive father, the drugs and sex with different guys who didn't seem to care for her and were outright abusive to her, so nothing should have stopped her from jumping. However when she nearly slipped, she snapped out of it suddenly before cradling herself in the cold. When someone survives nearly killing themselves, often their lives flash before their eyes. It was her thoughts of Forrest that kept her from going too far.

* The three other soldiers that Forrest saves are; Tex, Cleveland, and Dallas. The other guys he described from his platoon. Presumably they are in the same squad.
* Some have criticize Jenny for keeping Forrest Jr. a secret from Forrest, seeing that Forrest missed out a couple of his Son's first years. They tend to forget that Forrest was running across the country multiple times during all of it, and with Jenny working her way back to stable life and as a single mother, there wouldn't be very much, if at all, opportunities to tell Forrest. Only when she knew for certain that Forrest was done running did she finally send a letter.

* The film outright states that Lt. Dan's decision to invest in Apple made them incredibly wealthy. Yet te film was released in 1994, during the company's ''lowest'' point, a few years before UsefulNotes/SteveJobs was brought back and revitalized the company. If Forrest was wealthy from his Apple stock back then, imagine how wealthy he must be from his Apple stock ''now'' (assuming, of course, that Lt. Dan or whoever actually handles Forrest's financials didn't sell it all).

* The film outright states that Lt. Dan's decision to invest in Apple made them incredibly wealthy. The film was released in 1994, during the company's lowest point, a few years before UsefulNotes/SteveJobs was brought back and revitalized the company. If Forrest was wealthy from his Apple stock back then, imagine how wealthy he must be from his Apple stock *now* (Assuming, of course, Lt. Dan or whoever actually handles Forrest's financials didn't sell it all).