Flight Quack

Al Levin looks back on his years in Vietnam, more than fifty years after he went from a Harvard-trained pediatrician to a drafted Navy Flight Surgeon. Arriving at Dong Ha in early 1967, just ahead of the Tet Offensive, he was thrust onto the front lines and openly admits he was terrified. He recounts questioning why a doctor would ever need a weapon.

He describes Medevac helicopter crews flying into live combat under the cover of Huey gunships to retrieve wounded Marines. Inside the chopper, under heavy fire and often gripped by fear, he tried to keep as many young men alive as he could using rough but lifesaving procedures. During a night incursion onto the base, a teenage Viet Cong fighter attacked him in his bunker, and Levin killed him with his blade. He recalls feeling the man's heart stop.

The deaths of close friends, including a pilot who burned to death when his helicopter crashed, pushed him toward a mental breakdown and a growing urge to kill. He volunteered for the CIA's Operation Phoenix, a counterinsurgency program built around psychological warfare against local leaders seen as sympathetic to the enemy. He was placed on assassination teams that targeted civilians. The missions were dangerous, and he admits he had a death wish that, fortunately, went unfulfilled.

Levin survived the war and went on to a career in medical research and law, raised a family with his wife, and still walks his dogs. He received a Silver Star, a Bronze Star with Valor, and a Combat Action Ribbon with three gold stars, but he takes no pride in them. He is still grieving and struggles with the guilt of surviving and of what he was ordered to do. His message is that war is not the glorious thing shown in films and video games, and that no one truly wins except the few who profit from it.