When Dooley was in the Navy, he assisted with the "Passage to Freedom" program, which transported refugees from North Vietnam to South Vietnam in 1954 and 1955. He not only served as a French interpreter and provided medical services to the refugees, but also performed some medical intelligence work, such as gathering information on the location of French hospitals, how many patients they could support, and if Americans could use them. He also took intelligence information from Vietnamese officers to American military ships for decoding and forwarding.

          Dooley located information in an annual report of the Pasteur Institutes branch in Hanoi, which gave epidemiological statistics of the Vietnamese Colonial Army. He and others gathered a variety of medical intelligence as preparation should the U.S. decide to intervene in the war in Southeast Asia. Some examples of the information he collected include: diseases that could be contracted, treatments that were available, medical supplies that were available, who the local medical men were and their political points of view and whether they worked with other military powers in the area, and locations of water plants in the area.

          While in Vietnam, Dooley was held in "detention" by the communists for a few days. He was not hurt, just questioned. He wrote his mother about the experience to reassure her that he was fine.