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The subject of this article:

  • exists in the Forrest Gump novel canon (including Gump & Co.)
  • is not mentioned in the Forrest Gump film canon

In the Forrest Gump novel, Colonel Gooch is Forrest Gump's escort in Washington, D.C. to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor and briefly afterwards. Gump humiliates the colonel, first by dropping his pants in front of President Lyndon B. Johnson to show off his war wound, and then by answering a question of "What do you think of the war?" with "It is a bunch of shit." Both incidents receive large amounts of media attention, and Colonel Gooch is reassigned to a weather station in Iceland.

Near the end of the novel, the colonel (who has been "drummed out of the Army after [Forrest's] Medal of Honor tour") is hired for Forrest's shrimping business, placed in charge of "covert activites" by Mister Tribble.

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