period of immersion in the refugee drama, from September 1954 to May 1955, a period during which he drove himself so mercilessly that he went from 180 to 120 pounds, "nearly died of malarial fever, acquired four types of intestinal worms, and suffered so acutely from sleep deprivation that he frequently hallucinated." Jacobs speculated that something more than careerism or sentimentality, a "growing empathy", was motivating him, because before he had always avoided responsibility but now "he could not get enough of it": he was in charge of a network of clinics that treated up to 500 people per day; he regularly performed major surgery; he lobbied pharmaceutical companies for antibiotics; and, "in large part due to his vigilance, not a single epidemic broke out in Haiphong or on the ships leaving for Saigon." Naval discharge and Laotian activities Dooley was on a promotional tour for this book when he was investigated for participating in homosexual activities. It seems that what the Navy discovered about his private life resulted in a negotiated agreement that he would announce he was leaving the Navy in order to serve the people of Vietnam. After leaving the Navy, Dooley and three former Navy corpsmen established a hospital near Luang Namtha, Laos, with the sponsorship of the International Rescue Committee. At this time, the International Rescue Committee had a secret working relationship with the CIA in Southeast Asia, coordinated by Joseph Buttinger. In an article entitled "Why I'm A Jungle Medic," printed in Think magazine, June 1958, he said they chose Laos because the country, with 3,000,000 people, had only one "bonafide" doctor. He explained to the Laotian Minister of Health that he wished to work in an area near the Chinese border because "there are sick people there and furthermore people who had been flooded with potent draughts of anti-Western propaganda from Red China." Dooley founded the Medical International Cooperation Organization (MEDICO) under the auspices of which he built hospitals at Nam Tha, Muong Sing (five miles south of the Chinese border), and Ban Houei Sa. The plan for MEDICO was that it would build, stock, supply, and train staff for small hospitals; after 16 months, MEDICO planned to turn over these hospitals to the host country's government. During this same time period, he wrote two books, The Edge of Tomorrow and The Night They Burned the Mountain, about his experience in Laos, including