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The Journal of Military History 67.2 (2003) 632-634



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The Cat from Hue: A Vietnam War Story. By John Laurence. New York: Public Affairs, 2002. ISBN 1-891620-31-2. Pp. 848. $30.00.

This is John "Jack" Laurence's memoir of how a CBS TV newsman saw the Vietnam War from 1965 to 1970. Laurence started out as a rookie TV newsman and ended up creating a renowned documentary, The World of Charlie Company. The book covers his long journey and life as a TV reporter during the direct U.S. troop involvement in the Vietnam War, highlighted by his three tours in Vietnam: 1965-66, 1967-68, and 1970. His focus was on the "grunts," the fighting infantrymen in the "bush." There is also a final epilogue about what happened to him and his "band of brothers," colleagues, after the war. Jack came out with post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD), but many of his reporter friends were killed or vanished in the war zones.

The first section of this thick book covers Jack's Vietnam mid-tour at Hue in 1968 in the aftermath of the Tet Offensive. He rescues a Vietnamese cat he names Meo (Vietnamese for cat) that becomes a central character in the book. The cat becomes as difficult and hard to understand as the Vietnam War itself. It seems to possess nine lives like Laurence as he covers many of the key battles of the American war in Vietnam. The second part of the book takes place in 1965-66 in Vietnam's Central Highlands during Jack's first tour where he is a twenty-five-year-old fledgling TV war correspondent with a background in radio news journalism. Jack is optimistic and idealistic about the war. He covers the 1st Cavalry Division as it becomes the first major U.S. combat unit to take on the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) in the valleys of the Highlands, including the Ia Drang Valley and the Plei Me Special Forces Camp. Part three of the book takes place during the critical battles in the I Corps Tactical Zone just south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) during 1967-68, in Danang, Con Thien, Khe Sanh, the Rockpile, and Hue. This is where we found Laurence at the beginning of the book in part one. He builds a solid rapport with the Marines and is allowed to cover critical battles at the [End Page 632] fighting troop level (i.e., with the "grunts.") The fourth part of the book takes place in 1970 with the 1st Cavalry Division's operations along the Cambodian border north of Saigon and during President Nixon's invasion of Cambodia to destroy the Communist command structure there. Here we see Jack as an experienced, but jaded, reporter who relies on alcohol and drugs to get himself through his assignments. His disillusionment and cynicism mirrors that of the U.S. fighting men and the mood of their country. The final part of the book brings the reader up to date with a return visit to Vietnam in 1982 and a visit to the Vietnam Wall in Washington, D.C., that completes Jack's long journey through the war back to some type of normalcy.

In the course of Jack's journey, the reader sees the Vietnam War from the "grunts'" view in the "bush" to the higher echelons of the military hierarchy. Jack and his news team bounce back and forth between harrowing adventures in the field with the combat troops to fighting the politics of the high command in Danang and Saigon where he files his reports. This all makes for an interesting and entertaining story because the war correspondents lived a hedonistic life in comfortable hotels when not in the bush with the troops. Most Vietnam veterans will be able to relate to the story. For those that were not in Vietnam during the war years, the book gives a good picture of the action at several different times and levels. At first we were beginning to win, then...

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