Who is Cat Man from Fields of Fire and what is their importance?

Cat Man was a Mexican immigrant. His family came to the United States when he was a boy. Cat Man was a hard worker, even as a child, laboring in the fields for hours to help provide for his family. He later went to school and learned to both speak and write in English before quitting at the age of sixteen. As a Marine, he was intuitive, something that proved important to his unit as they traversed difficult and dangerous terrain against the enemy.