DEDICATION
For all those who haven’t had a voice, have felt shut out and marginalized or been silenced for speaking their truth and living their lives. This book and the life it portrays, are for you.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It is with deep respect and gratitude that I would like to thank Dr. Leff and his family and friends, for sharing intimate details about his adventurous and controversial public and private life. Without their time, attention and support, this book would have been impossible, let alone believable. The old adage that “fact is stranger than fiction” could not be more apropos than it is to recall the life of this unique American hero who always matches his words with actions and tries to “do the right thing” in spite of personal consequences.
Dr. Leff
Preface/Disclaimer
The interviews and information gathered for this biography took place over a two year period. Everyone featured in this story gave their permission to use their words and images. It is not my intention to provide anything but the facts as they were presented in writing, on tape or in photographs. The material contained in this book is accurate, to the best of my knowledge. There is no intention or desire to slander or infringe on the privacy or character of anyone contained herein. Any errors, miss-quotes or omissions are the sole responsibility of the author.
TOUCH DOWN
In late August, of 1969, Captain Arnie Leff, MD was deployed, along with other new recruits, to Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base. His role was to provide medical care at the 432nd U.S. Air Force Dispensary in Udorn Thani, Thailand. Udorn is approximately 30 miles south of Vientiane, Laos and separated from both Laos and Cambodia by the Mekong River.
The recruits had been traveling across the globe for hours, anxiously awaiting their arrival and their first real time encounter with the war in Southeast Asia. Their first stop had been Bangkok Airport, where they’d arrived in a Boeing 707, which had been cleared of civilian passenger seats and fitted with rows of makeshift seating for maximum capacity, not comfort. After debarking into waves of humid, claustrophobic heat, they climbed aboard a C130; a plane that can hold an entire convoy of trucks. Udorn was the last stop for the C130, which made its three hour flight to five different bases, all officially leased from the Thai Air Force by the U.S. Air Force.
In the months that followed, Dr. Leff discovered that being the last stop on the circuit meant that their dispensary often ran out of vital medicines, such as penicillin. He also learned that he could argue until his last breath, without any additional supplies ever being provided.
Unofficially, the bases were controlled by the U.S., though Thai military, including the Thai Army, ran the concessions, provided the “maids” and used their U.S. connections for trading and black market activities. Thailand was politically neutral about the war in Viet Nam, but physically very active. They were and still are part of the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO), which includes Japan and Australia.
Arnie Leff had not joined the Air Force with any illusions or false expectations; he’d joined as a patriot. He had been part of the Civil Air Patrol, a civilian Air Force auxiliary, since he was a young teenager and had continued to serve in that capacity throughout medical school in Cincinnati. He’d also ascertained, as had other young men of his age, that he might avoid being an Army medic in the jungles of Viet Nam if he joined the Air Force voluntarily. He enlisted during medical school and went on active duty in the summer of 1969 and was given the rank of Captain, not long after the counter culture and anti-war sentiments from San Francisco’s summer of love (in 1967) had migrated east and exploded on the Cincinnati scene.
Doctor Leff had been too enmeshed and absorbed in medical school and his internship to give much thought to the war. He’d always believed America was the, “Good guys. You know, John Wayne and everything.” His formative years were during World War II and he constantly saw the U.S. portrayed as being on the side of “righteousness and justice”. He had no reason to doubt or question the government when they said we had to stop the communists from taking over Viet Nam. If the politicians and military said we should defend the South Vietnamese from a great evil, he had no experience to contradict such a premise. After all, he’d been serving in the Civil Air Patrol for over half his life and they’d always treated him with dignity and respect.
He didn’t mind the music, the freedom, the clothes, hair and drugs that he experienced in 1968 and 69 before boot camp. That was different. That was what young people should be doing, rebelling against their elders and creating something different. Most of his friends were musicians and hippies or what used to be called Beatniks. He was hip to the changes, as long as it didn’t involve politics.
Two of his good friends, Stan Dragul and his wife Sandy Kaplan, were adamantly opposed to the war. Stan had gone through college and medical school with Arnie and been in the same fraternity. Arnie respected Stan and his family, but couldn’t understand their position.
“What’s this all about?” he’d ask. “We’re the good guys”.
Arnie wasn’t gung ho for the war, but he wasn’t against it either. In fact, most of his friends were sort of quasi neutral on the matter. Stan and Sandy however, took a lot of flak for their position and were some of the first, of a soon to be rapidly growing tide, to question the status quo.
On the fourth of July, in the year 1969, Arnie Leff was activated for duty and became Captain Arnie Leff, USAF. He drove his old Chevy nonstop from Cincinnati, Ohio to Wichita Falls, Kansas in 109-degree heat and started basic training. He learned how to shoot and qualified with an M16 and endured exposure to tear gas. “All in all, it wasn’t that rough. We were doctors and officers. They went easy on us, even though I was in the best physical shape of my life.”
Immediately after boot camp Captain Leff visited his girlfriend Sondra, who was the sister of his friend Sandy Kaplan, said his goodbyes and drove to Los Angeles, where he was scheduled to ship out to Thailand. He was pretty nonchalant at the time and figured he would serve his country for a year, without being in the middle of the war zone and return unscathed to civilian life. This would be his first “real job” as a doctor. He was filled with pride. It wouldn’t last long.
SOMETHING SMELLS FOUL
In late 1969 and early 1970, Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base was the second busiest airport in the world, next to Tan Sim Nhut Air Force Base in Saigon. It wasn’t the second busiest with the number of people passing through, but with the number of flights taking off and landing. They weren’t flying for recreation or sightseeing; they were reconnaissance planes and bombers, lots of bombers. They left the field weighed down like heavyweight fighters and returned like featherweights.
A few weeks after his arrival at Udorn, Dr. Leff began to get a feel for his clientele. There were three groups he attended and with whom he became intimately acquainted. The first was the United States Air Force personnel, which numbered about 5,000. The second group was the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) and contract personnel (mercenaries) who were employed by Air America. They often had their families traveling with them and thus their wives and children were also his patients. The third contingent consisted of Royal Laotian Army soldiers who were wounded in the war against the communist Pathet Lao across the border in Laos, protected by the Thai military and treated at Udorn.
The U.S. was supposedly not at war with Laos, but was bombing their villages, giving the government military weapons and ammunition and supporting the Royal Lao Army with money, surveillance and medical care. The U.S. Air Force was bombing villages that contained nothing but . . . villagers. Intelligence officers ordered changes in the captions on reconnaissance pictures. When questioned, pilots would quote the party line and say they were bombing “communist strongholds.”