Why did a high-ranking officer disconnect all the microphones when Forrest Gump was about to speak on Vietnam?

Uh, because it was an anti-war rally and the officer in question obviously didn’t agree with the message the protesters where espousing. What’s not to get?

Forrest Gump was going to completely and openly speak his mind, at an anti-war rally no less and in full dress uniform, about anything and everything he experienced in Vietnam and why all of it is so terrible. The officer in question suspected this was going to happen and didn’t want Forrest Gump to embarrass and criticize the military.

I’m a military member I can tell you, if someone went to a rally like that and attempted to make a speech such as that, they could be harshly disciplined under the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice). Military members are not authorized to attend political rallies and certain other types of mass gatherings whether they are on or off duty.

The man wanted to talk about chocolate and shoes?

They didn’t know what Forrest would say, but they feared the worst, so shut off the mics.

Because it was in the script. It was a movie!

@UScitizen Yes, that is the literal reason, but the movie was based on actual incidents, and the incident that segment was based on was well known to people of that time period.

@YARNLADY Is there actual historical archive footage of an event paralleling Forrest Gump’s speech?

(Looking forward to watching that!)

This article describes the ‘tone’ of the time fairly well. I don’t have an exact single event.

This might help according to Tom Hanks he said, “Sometimes when people go to Vietnam, they go home to their mommas without any legs. Sometimes they don’t go home at all. That’s a bad thing. That’s all I have to say about that.”