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Gainesville man recalls serving in army with real-life 'Forrest Gump'
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Terry Reagan points out on a map how the firefight played out in which Pfc. Sammy L. Davis was awarded the Medal of Honor for using an air mattress to save three American soldiers and helping push back the Vietcong in a battle in the Vietnam War. This story was later used to create Forrest Gump's heroics in the film. - photo by Erin O. Smith
Life may have been "like box of chocolates" for Forrest Gump, but for the 42 men who entered into Cai Lay, Vietnam, on a fateful November night in 1967, they pretty much knew what they were going to get. They expected a dangerous situation with bullets flying past them as they faced off with the Viet Cong. But they didn’t expect to develop a brotherhood with their fellow soldiers or experience a deadly situation that would later appear on the big screen in the 1994 film "Forrest Gump."