Forrest Gump was born on June 6, 1944 (the day of the Normandy landings during World War II). Because his father was absent during his life, purportedly "on vacation", Forrest was raised by his mother, who named him after Civil War Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was also first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, and a supposed ancestor of Gump's. This was to remind Forrest that "sometimes we all do things that, well, just don't make no sense."