Customer Reviews

Two Souls Indivisible: The Friendship That Saved Two POWs in Vietnam

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I finished this book in a day -- the style was readable and the story was well told. In short order you meet these two men, Fred Cherry and Porter Halyburton, one black, one white, learning about their respective personal histories and then how their POW experiences developed into a friendship. Though their time together in captivity is relatively short in relation to their total time as POWs, the impact each had on the other makes for a memorable story. The book relates their strength of character as they endured years of torture and suffering at the hands of the Vietnamese and how they never lost hope of being reunited with their families.

I found Fred Cherry's story especially compelling and poignant. Here he is, a pioneering air force pilot and the first black officer captured by the North Vietnamese, suffering great physical harm and enduring with fortitude and courage only to return home to a wife who prefers to think of him as dead because she likes his military pay and an estrangement from two of his four children. After learning about Fred Cherry it's no wonder his picture is hanging at the Pentagon -- it should!

I am Col. Fred V. Cherry's son and a friend of Porter Halyburton. This book, which I was also interviewed for, is better than I ever dreamed at recanting the experiences of these two great American soldiers. Reading this book is a walk down memory lane for me and it sometimes brings back bad memories. However, James Hirsh has done a wonderful job in sharing these soldiers experience and friendship with one another. I think that anyone who takes the time to really find out what prison life was like in Vietnam will find themselves compelled to encourage their friends and family to read this book. During the time my father was a POW, our family went through the ordeal as though we were also in a prison camp. My siblings remained relatively close, however, my relationship with my mother changed drastically, due to the love I always had for my father. Upon his return, relationships between our family members were stretched even further, with the children choosing parents to side with. In the past few years, 33 have passed since Dad's return, our family has begun to heal. Hopefully, these wounds will enable us to go on and remember what devasting effects a war can have on any family.

I read this book expecting a lot of "war" data. But what I received was far beyond what I expected. It was fantastic. It did just what it set out to do, which was capture the comradry and the "Two Souls Indivisible" and their plights together. I have the pleasure of knowing Fred Cherry and he is a wonderful man. After reading the book, I have another level of respect for him and what he has accomplished.

I read this book on the advise of a cousin in Montana. And when I finished, I remembered sitting with my mother and crying as we saw Uncle Fred's name on the list of released POW's. I was in my junior year in college at the time. I have kept an article from Jet Magazine of an interview that he gave just after he was released. Much of what he said in that article is in this book; just fleshed out to the full, long, seven years. I knew some of it then; I know a lot more now. I am very proud that this book was written about these two men, my Uncle and Mr. Halyburton. They are living history. And Mr. Hirsch does a wonderful job of presenting them as just that-real history-real people.

Extremely well written. The trials of these two real heros were transferred to the reader vividly on every page. A white fighter pilot was put in the same cell to care for the severely injured black pilot with the thought that this would further demoralize them. Or so their enemy thought. This was a story of heartbreak, courage beyond bravery, and triumph of the human spirit. It was especially meaningful to me since Fred Cherry's son was a good friend of my son while at Yokota Air Base, Japan right before he was shot down. My family prayed many prayers for Major Cherry.I was happy to know that his bravery was so legendary that his pictures hangs in the Pentagon. A truly remarkable human being!

This book is absolutely compelling. It gives the reader a true sense of the heroism in every day life the POW's exhibited. I have had the honor and privilege of meeting Porter Halyburton and he is truly one of the most incredible men I have ever met. The story of Porter Halyburton and Fred Cherry evidences man's capacity for compassion and honor even in the face of man's inhumanity to man.

I found this to be a fascinating and inspirational account of how two men, and their compatriots used their determination and creative skills to help one another survive the ordeal of prisoners of war in North Vietnam for over 7 years. There is much to be learned from how these men responded to very adverse conditions.

Hirsch recounts the friendship that developed between two aviators who were shot down in North Vietnam and endured seven years of imprisonment and torture. Fred Cherry was the first black pilot captured by the Vietnamese, a hot fighter jock and a pioneer in integrating the Air Force. Porter Halyburton was a southern gentleman, steeped in the racial relationships of the old South. Cherry was a Major with combat tours in Korea; Halyburton a young Lieutenant j.g. Although they spent only seven months in the same cell, each credits the other with saving his life as their captors slowly bled the will to live from them. The author also recounts the travails of the two wives, of whom one became a leader in the POW movement and the other declared her husband dead and refused to accept his return. The author skillfully avoids both treacly sentimentalism and excessive gore and concentrates on the leadership and mutual support that kept the survivors alive through years of isolation, abuse, and starvation. Certainly worth reading.

This book teaches how the most beautiful things can happen in the most unlikely of places - that in a POW camp in North Vietnam where prisoners are physically and mentally tortured, two men can overcome their social upbringings to form a friendship that ultimately saves their lives.

James Hirsch does a great job in taking us back in time to the events that transpired between Fred Cherry and Porter Halyburton. He paints such a vivid description of these men and their surroundings in the POW camp, that in reading this story, you feel what they felt: the pains of torture, the sweat on your forehead on a 100 degree Vietnamese day, and the sweet (and bittersweet) feelings of homecoming after seven years of absence from the life you once knew.

This is a poignant story about two pilots downed during the Vietnam war and ending up in the same POW camps. I read it because it was tauted as a book of over coming racism and prejudice. The idea of American racism was supposedly being used as a tool to demean the white pilot into submission by the Vietcong. Human nature never ceases to amaze me but it is hard to comprehend that two Americans in the dire straits of a POW camp would let something like the color of their skin hinder companionship, communication et. al., things in low supply at a POW camp apparently. The story is heartwarming and informative of a POW's plight. The actual racism issue is of no significance to me when it is put in perspective of what else was going on in the camps.