So it was after one of these meetings that the scene from Forrest Gump came to Reed’s mind, the one where Tom Hanks, playing the dim-witted Gump in boot camp, assembles a rifle in seconds and calls out, “Done!” When the drill sergeant asks Gump why he completed the task so quickly, he answers dully, “You told me to, drill sergeant.” Reed started telling colleagues in a Gump voice what he would say if he was ever hauled in front of Congress to explain why a Boeing plane had been waved briskly through certification: “You told me to, Congressman.”
