Donna Davis’s Reviews > Vietnam > Status Update

This goes by quickly, and is well organized. It carries a tone of outrage, and I have to remind myself that the Pentagon Papers had not yet been released when she wrote it.

MCarthy's heart is in the right place, but she is not very conscious of how she formulates her prose. Too often she uses the language of imperialism even while protesting it: "Viet Cong" rather than NLF (most of the time anyway), and lordy, "black pajamas". Pajamas are sleeping apparel. The term is an unflattering nickname that effectively infers that the Vietnamese are not real soldiers or they'd have uniforms.

MCarthy's heart is in the right place, but she is not very conscious of how she formulates her prose. Too often she uses the language of imperialism even while protesting it: "Viet Cong" rather than NFL (most of the time anyway), and lordy, "black pajamas". Pajamas are sleeping apparel. The term is an unflattering nickname that effectively infers that the Vietnamese are not real soldiers or they'd have uniforms.