Sunday, May 13, 2018

Where Were the Doctors? Torture and the Betrayal of Medicine

In 1968, shortly after arriving at my assignment as a battalion surgeon at An Khe, South Vietnam, I was awakened late one night by a drunken sergeant.

“Doc, we need your help,” he said enthusiastically. “A platoon has just returned with some captured gooks. We’ve got the gadgets all set up to make ’em talk.”

The gadgets, he explained through slurred speech, were improvised, battery-powered devices that could deliver electric shocks. I realized I was being asked to participate in torture.

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