Tom
McGuffie: Forrest Gump
Clip 4
In combat, the infantry walked on the ground and went into villages to capture or kill Vietcong (VC). The infantry always had with them an artillery officer, like myself, and a radio telephone operator. As an artillery officer, my job was just like Forrest Gump's job in the movie - going through the jungle, taking on fire. They didn't show it in the movie, but in real life, they called in air strikes because it was a really bad situation. If we got into a bad situation that we couldn't handle with the infantry rifles, the captain or the lieutenant in the infantry would say, "McGuff, we need some artillery." I'd get on my radio and call in the artillery.