The Cat from Hue: A Vietnam War Story

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Summary: The Cat from Hue
Review: Book Review: "The Cat from Hue: a Vietnam War Story" by John Laurence.

Reading a book like this and knowing the 8 ½ years it took to finish makes one appreciate the words more. A very well written book with no details left out. It is one of the good reading books about Vietnam.

Part I is about Hue in 1968. His first-hand experience with the Marines as they tried to retake the city of Hue. It was during this street-fighting that the cat was found, later to return to Saigon with him and finally back to the United States. The cat named Meo then took control of whatever place it found itself in.

As journalists they were not tied down and were able to leave the battle area and return to Saigon to complete putting together the story and get it sent back to the States to be shown on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. He spent time with all of the units of the military while they went about the duties of accomplishing the assigned mission. Many times they humped it with the grunts and lived as they did in that foreign country so far away. Returning to Saigon for R & R between assignments to regain their senses Jack writes about things that the grunts never were able to see, the relaxing times in Saigon.

Part II starts after a chance encounter with a member of the advance party of the 1st Cavalry Division and he is able to see for the first time An Khe, which would become the first home of the 1st Cavalry Division. The101st Airborne Division was providing security and conducting operations in the area around An Khe while the 1st Cavalry Division moved in. He covered operations by the 101st Airborne Division then moved up north to cover the Marine units. A short visit to some Air Force units including a ride during a support mission in those famed A-1E's that were the workhorse for close-in support.

With the attack on the Plei Me Special Forces camp in progress, the battle of Ia Drang was beginning. A trip to the Special Forces Camp and then, as luck would have it, he was back in Saigon to file that story when the battle fought by the 3d Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division unfolded, with results that would be talked about and discussed for years to come.

Operation Masher and later called White Wing where many battles were fought receives some coverage as do battles after that, but then as with the Military when your tour is over you return to the States. At this time, May, 1966 Jack does not realize it but he will return to Vietnam to cover a much greater story.

In part III, he writes about working in the States and describes some of the stories covered, easy reading but not stories about Vietnam. Returning to Vietnam in August, 1967, he covers many battles and encounters by many units, in May 1968 he again returned to the United States and writes about his life after returning the second time, this time with the Cat named Meo.

During this stay in New York the talk of returning to Vietnam again starts, to result in the planning of a return trip in 1970 to do a feature story on one group of troopers and their daily life in the bush. Many days and nights and also the few times they were able to get out of the bush is described in easy reading detail in Part IV.

Part IV is set in March, 1970. Returning to Vietnam, he describes the events that lead to Charlie Company, 2d Battalion 7th Cavalry, where until censorship was imposed by higher headquarters Jack and his team spent the days and nights following in the footsteps of a Charlie Company squad lead by Sgt Lyman (Gene) Dunnuck. The series started and coverage of some of it being shown nightly on CBS News. Then as happened so many times in Vietnam, a change of company commanders, which leads to the censorship. But, as Jack describes the continued daily miracle that has followed him throughout his time in Vietnam, it happened again and he found himself with Charlie Company to cover their first assault into Cambodia. A final return to Charlie Company to wrap up the coverage and put an ending on the story was arranged. Jack made one last visit to the 11th ACR and then after a short stay in the 377th Air Force hospital in Saigon, he returned with all the haunting memories of three tours covering Vietnam.

Many years have passed since June of 1970 and the final result 8 ½ years of much hard work has produced 850 pages, a history of the War in Vietnam through the eyes of a CBS correspondent. Reading these pages provides the reader with an accurate account of the daily lives of combat units and their first-hand reflections as they counted remaining days till they returned to the United States. Humor is in these pages and a change of writing to bring the reader out of the pages that much of the time brings tears and memories.

Of all of the names mentioned throughout the book early research into finding out what has happened to the men of Charlie Company and what they are doing now has found that Sgt Lyman (Gene) Dunnuck passed away a few years ago.

Jack Laurence now lives in rural England with a tribe of cats but Meo is no longer with him having used up his nine lives and joined the fight elsewhere.

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: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Vietnam: Into our Living rooms
Review: Remember John Laurence, the CBS reporter, who brought Vietnam into our living rooms? His vivid portrayal of the grunts and soldiers who lived and died for their country was seen on
television on a nightly basis. The real war came home for the first time. "The Cat from Hue" continues this theme with more
details and behind the scene stories told from his viewpoint and
often from the words of the original speaker.
So well written I feel I am "In Country"- a book hard to put down- not much is left out -Vietnam in first person.

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Summary: powerful and worth reading
Review: This book is a bit daunting to start reading since it is 850 pages and much of it is an account of war on the ground in Vietnam. But I found as I read that it is a tour de force and much is of high drama, taking one into the grunt world that Laurence lived in as a TV journalist (CBS) where the viewpoint is quite different from that of a print journalist. While Meo, the cat the book is named for, occupies only about 50 pages of the book, those pages are a delight to read, even tho one figures Laurence is exaggerating a bit in describing the tough cat which he found in Hue and his behavior. This book is powerful and is rightly ranked with Dispatches, by Michael Herr, which I read with appreciation on July 6, 1999, as a great Vietnam book. However the best book still that I have read on the war in Vietnam is We Were Soldiers Once...And Young, by Harold G. Moore and Joe Galloway. But this book belongs on the same shelf of great books about Vietnam.