Welcome to Friday 56! Hosted by Freda’s Voice, you turn to page 56 or 56% in any book or reading device and pick a sentence that grabs you.

One of them explosions send a bunch of shit flying into our pit an them boys on the far side get hit with it an start screamin an yellin an bleedin an grappin at theyselfs. It were all too apparent that the pit was not a safe place to be hidin. Sergeant Kranz suddenly appear over the edge of the pit, an he holler for all of us to get the hell out of there an follow him. There is a little break between explosions an we haul ass out of the pit. I come over the top an look down an godalmighty! Lyin there is four or five of the fellers who was squirtin the hose on us. They is hardley recognizable as people–all mangled up like they has been stuffed thru a cotton baler or somethin. I ain’t never seen nobody dead, an it is the most horrible and scary thing ever happen to me, afore or since!”

Forest Gump by Winston Groom

At this point in the book, Forrest has been sent to Vietnam (he was drafted), even though he is of below average intelligence (and even though they did not accept him in the first draft). This scene describes when they were being shelled in the foxhole and upon getting out, Forrest sees dead American soldiers, who were hosing down Forrest and others because they hadn’t bathed in over a week.

This particular passage shows the horrors of war, and really impacts events in Forrest’s life later on in the book.