SOURCE: "An American Inquisition," in Los Angeles Times Book Review, May 2, 1993, pp. 4, 11.

In the following review, Dawldoff lauds Shilts's blending of fact and human interest in Conduct Unbecoming, noting that "Shilts's gay-soldier's-eye-view of the Vietnam War is one of the book's most moving and revisionist sections."

In 1978, several gay crew members of the Nathaniel Greene lived, as did their fellow sailors, in an apartment complex the Navy had rented for them. The gay roommates had fixed up their house in "high House & Garden style, and took turns preparing gourmet meals for one another." They got used to unannounced visits around mealtime from their unmarried, straight shipmates, who lived student-style and ate frozen dinners. The gay sailors got talked into hosting a Tupperware party for the whole complex. Two dozen sailors and their wives and girlfriends crowded the apartment for cocktails and Tupperware. Thanks to the wives talk ("Those...