FORREST GUMP 2

After meeting Abbie Hoffman at an anti-war rally in Washington, D.C., Forrest reunites with Jenny, who has been living a hippie counterculture life. He also encounters Dan, who has become a hard alcoholic, having felt that it was his destiny to die on the battlefield, as had all his ancestors. Forrest celebrates New Year's 1972 with Dan, who is initially hostile and uses Forrest as a means of obtaining alcohol. When Forrest tells of his and Bubba's plan to buy a shrimping boat, Dan mocks Forrest and sardonicly promises that he will become first mate of the ship. However, Dan later finds empathy with the fact that Forrest has been discriminated against in the past because of his perceived low I.Q., likening it to his own experience of disability.

While Forrest is in recovery for a bullet wound in his buttocks, he discovers his uncanny ability for ping-pong, eventually gaining popularity and rising to celebrity status and later playing ping-pong in China. After meeting with President Richard M. Nixon, Forrest inadvertently triggers the Watergate scandal, is honorably discharged from the army and returns home to Alabama. He finds that his mother has endorsed a company that makes ping-pong paddles, earning himself $25,000, which, after getting a new hair cut, a new suit, fancy dinner for his mother, a bus ticket and three Dr Pepper soft drinks, he uses to buy a shrimping boat, fulfilling his promise to Bubba. Dan returns to fulfill his earlier promise and becomes first mate of the boat.

Forrest and Dan fail to pull in much shrimp at first, but during Hurricane Carmen, both men stay out in the middle of the ocean with the boat, which is the only shrimping boat in the area to survive. The lack of competition helps Dan and Forrest to catch huge amounts of shrimp. In the middle of the storm, Dan challenges God and finally overcomes his personal demons and becomes one of Forrest's closest friends. As his business partner, Dan later invests the money in Apple Computer, and Forrest is financially secure for the rest of his life. Forrest names his company Bubba Gump which has since inspired an actual shrimp restaurant, and gives half of the proceeds to Bubba's family.