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Summary: Impressed, Much work went into this great book.
Review: I served in the 101st Airborne Division, 3rd Brigade, 173rd Av Attack from 67-73. I served two tours of combat including the Cambodia campaign. I do agree with John on every account, I have no arguments, Yes there was a monster present, and situations got seriously out of hand. But this book is so much more than that, a comprehensive write that is right on the money. This book is the most factual record that I have witnessed on the public market, read this and you will be truly enlightened of this part of the war in Viet Nam.
I'd like to mention a book that is relative to this, and speaks of more conflict to come, a must read, SB 1 or God by Maddox
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Summary: One of the Best, if not The Best
Review: I watched John Laurence on television years ago and I was always drawn to his war reporting. It was among the very best of all the media. When I saw his book I wondered if it would be as excclent, because usually TV people can't crossover. Well, it is better than that. It is not just a good memoir, not just a good war book, not just a good media book, not just a good literary book -- it is all those things: it is a GOOD BOOK. Easily one of the best books this year ... if not the best, and I hope it will win a lot of awards. I liked it because it's well written, honest, vibrant, and he includes the reader in everything that happens. The people are memorable. The events are chilling. Someone should make a movie out of his chapters on Frankie's House, and he has a great dream sequence that is touchjigly romantic. So, yes, he hits all the bases: war, sex and a cat.I hope he's already writing another book, and then another, and then another.
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Summary: Rating The Book
Review: If I had to sum up a review of "The Cat From Hue" in three words it would be this ... "buy this book."
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Summary: An Exceptional Story of the Viet Nam War and Human Spirit
Review: If you seek to discover the immense hunger and guts it takes covering a war involving your country --- a distant war, in an upside down world and culture, a war that stubbornly defies all professed explanations or purported purpose -- and to follow the reporting of that war really up close, in the trenches, and beyond; and all the way, be propelled by a crackling, heartrending and remarkably detailed narrative reflecting an inordinately large, good heart and commanding intellect.. then read "Cat."
If you want to know the reaction of a human being who, after eagerly racing off to a war, hits head-on a story of killing as complex, confounding, wrenching - and,yes, to his horror, even beguiling -- as unfolded in Viet Nam.. then read "Cat."
If the reader wants to know what it takes to capture a TV story-- in battle -- the crucial, steely discipline; the ceaseless, dispassionate calculation of strengths and weakness' of compatriots, of the "enemy," of weapons; of competitors, of chance itself; the scripting - often frantically scribbled; the mandatory shots, angles; light and cutaways; the sound; the questions; the "bites;" the on-camera "bridges," "closers;" and "takes;" the batteries ('got enough juice left for that shot?'); the always delicate, nurturing task of preserving touchy film; the camera - 'the eye,' that is also 34 pounds of onerous, joined-at-the-hip, dead weight; wild egos and colleague's shameless betrayals; cool, removed show producers' and their insatiable addiction to "bang-bang," and ....the pitiless tyranny of TIME (TICK, TICK..)... read Cat.
If you want to know how one individual's humility and honesty, and true sense of self --- despite willful, driven self indulgence; and the warping, corrosive nature of flattery and awards -- can be salvaged in a final telling, stripped clean and shining, read "Cat."
If you want to be reminded, time and again -- with such prodding poignancy --- how young Americans so willingly gave themselves to death, and to killing, even when they knew, more and more, it was all pointless -- read "Cat."
If you want to know what it's like being someone, driven by young, healthy ambition, garnering genuinely deserved recognition only to then recoil from it.. read "Cat."
If you want to discover as a consequence for having brilliantly reported horror and blood, being blind-sided and seized by an undertow of conscience, so powerfully infused with self-loathing, that it lead to long years of self imposed exile in a nether land of drugs, alcohol and denial -- then read "Cat."
And if you want to learn why true liberation, true victory, is always, immutably personal -- not political, not military.. then read "Cat."
"The Cat from Hue" is magnificent.
It is a life's work; a story about a man who should not be alive to tell it. Thank God he is. And, for the rest of us, thank God he told it.
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Summary: John Laurence Is Esoteric
Review: John Laurence has totally faked me out and happily surprised me with The Cat From Hue.Wow his descriptions of combat the suffering of the dead and dying are vividedly described in such feeling terms.The gross inequities of combat and yes the gross failures of our leaders both military and political are so absorbingly described.John's human sensitivities flow through his book the feelings for the dead and dying on both sides and yes his love for his cat Meo.Yes John bares his soul and takes on a trip that is so multi facted that only classical literature denotes.We witness his soul in flux and under duress. We witness his dialectical tension with a totally different realm of reality and culture and how he copes with this esoteric and strange world.John made it out of Dante's Inferno and shared with us all.So do not think for a second he has only written a great Viet Nam genre book he has done so much more.
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Summary: Another View of the Vietnam War
Review: John Laurence provides a candid view of the Vietnam war with particular emphasis on the operating style of the U.S. military hierarchy. The approach of the U.S. officer corps to the war was basically career oriented and a case of getting your ticket punched in order to have one's military career progress. Laurence has a fine writing style as well as a sensitivity to the suffering of the Vietnamese population at the hands of their own leadership and the U.S. military. Well done.
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Summary: He describes it all. And he also questions why.
Review: John Laurence was a CBS-TV journalist during the Vietnam War. Now, thirty years later, he has pulled together all his recollections, notes and collected data in this in-depth tome, fully 841 pages long. Its physical weight alone meant that it was too heavy for me to carry around, and so I kept it at my bedside, reading only a few pages at a time each night and taking more than six months to finally finish it. This gave me a chance to fully digest the impact of the thousands of details that make up his story, bringing me right into the heart of the action, and sharing his experience of the conflict as he was living it. In 1968, during the Tet Offensive in the city of Hue, amidst the bombing and destruction, he found an abandoned kitten with a feisty personality. To him, this symbolized the strong will of the North Vietnamese enemies. He adopted the kitten who then shows up sporadically during the long narrative, always getting into trouble, attacking other cats and generally being a nuisance. The author came to love this cat however, and the reader can sense the author's humanity in the way he cared for his pet. The book is filled with hundreds of direct quotes from the men in the field, descriptions of day-to-day life in a war zone, the challenges of filming the war "up close" and getting the film to CBS on time for broadcast, the camaraderie and competition among the journalists, the physical discomfort of life in the field, compassion for the horrors experienced by both the soldiers and the Vietnamese people and the sharpened senses of knowing your life is always in danger. There were several incidents of conflict between the journalists and military brass and an incident captured on film when some soldiers made their own choices rather than accept an unwise command. There were also descriptions of drug and alcohol use, both among the men and the journalists, and some wild plane rides. Underlying all this, the question of "why" was always there. I felt I was right there with Mr. Laurence, throughout the book - observing the carnage and meeting the people, enjoying brief respites from the violence, and, most of all, bringing the story to the people back home as a witness to his times. I learned facts in this book. And felt emotion. But, most of all, it made me think, and that is where the strength of this writing lies. I give this book an extremely high recommendation. It's a slow read. But definitely worthwhile.
Rating: 
Summary: Exhaustive and Emotionally Exhausting read...
Review: John Laurence's The Cat from Hue is an emotionally exhausting tour through one man's personal history of the American war in Vietnam. Don't mistake the fact that despite giving good coverage of many of the major events of the U.S. war in Vietnam, Cat is a very personal memoir. Laurence covered the war as a television journalist for CBS, and was in country for almost five years between 1965 and 1970. Most of this book is a detailed description of the combat the author witnessed, and the people he met. While Laurence is highly critical of the government, war, and the policy behind it he is always sympathetic to the troops and the book never reads like a catalog of war crimes that some Vietnam criticisms become. In fact, for at least the first three-quarters of the book Laurence is sparing in his open political comments.
The last quarter of the book covers Laurence's 1970 tour, spent largely with C Company, 2nd of the 7th Cavalry. It is during this time that the writing splits between war coverage and political criticism, but this is largely because Laurence became embroiled in a bureaucratic argument with the Army over his participation directly with C Company. Laurence presents this argument more even handedly than you would expect, but I personally still had mixed feelings after reading the book. Indeed, the narrative falters a little at the end. Some of the last parts of the book spent a little too much time on Laurence's relationship with his future wife, and his personal problems during and after the war. This makes the story more personal but it also detracts a little from the impact of the real story. This IS a very personal book for the author.
The book reads quite quickly despite its lengthy size. At almost 850 pages, the book does not appear to be an easy read but is, largely due to the informal writing style of the author and the first person presentation. In the end, I wasn't sure if I really liked Laurence or not, and I can understand why some readers would be put off after pushing through the book: this is a very personal account, more so the farther into the story you get. Nevertheless, The Cat from Hue is an excellent account of one man's journey through the Vietnam War, and at its best gives the reader a front row view of the horrors of the war and some of the real heroes who fought and survived it.
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Summary: Straight Dope and Therapy
Review: Lawrence states early on that he wants to pin down the essence of Vietnam, to slay the demons that haunt his soul. He does this through storytelling, beautiful and carefully nuanced storytelling. As a writer, Lawrence knows how to suck you in; he then drops the heavy bomb, recounting experiences "in country" whose truth is far stranger and more ironic than fiction. His painful attention to word craft (the book dogged him for years) elevates the narrative to art, though an art at times a tad self-conscious. Vietnam's mixture of lush life and doom rises reeking from the pages - equally memorable are the glimpses into the paradoxical soul of a war reporter who is human first, journalist second. Anyone interested in the straight dope on Vietnam will be swept up in this memoir. And those enamored of extraordinary American prose will count Lawrence among its true practioners.
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Summary: Great Title! Great Cover!! Great Bore!!!
Review: Mr. Laurence certainly has a lot to say, as evinced by this hefty tome's volume. Unfortunately for the hapless reader this lot is not well put. Thas is to say that Mr. Laurence, while perhaps an exemplary television newsman and radio reporter, is not a particularly gifted writer. Part of the problem may be the difficulty of reconstructing daily events in minute detail thirty years after the fact. Having said that, it would seem that a great raconteur would have used the intervening thirty years between event and authorship to hone the tales he wishes to tell into finely crafted, razor-edge vignettes that would bring the experience and the characters alive for the author. Sad to say, Mr. Laurence failed to do this. So, I suspect that you, like I, will eagerly delve into this book, then plod through, then get bogged down in a swamp of wispy, vapid detail until finally tossing the book aside with a sigh heavy with unmet expectations and dashed high hopes. At the end of it all, one must say to oneself, "So, there is some stuff from the Vietnam war that simply is not worth recounting, and I have found it." One of the promotional blurbs touting this book makes the comparison between this and Herr's book. I believe that this is a pretty good comparison as neither is particulary well done; although, as between the two, I'd choose Dispatches. I would recommend to you instead a two volume set (or the one volume compilation republishing) titled 'Reporting Vietnam' which is absolutely, jaw droppingly fine Vietnam War reportage which must not be missed. Good Luck.
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