[IGOTMINE]

Uh oh.

"Estimated" number of KIA. This smacks of the Vietnam Combat Math of "We fired 10,000 rounds, therefore we must have killed 54 of the enemy." Granted this was in the Guardian, but unsettling nonetheless. Show the bodies.

And before anyone dares flame me, I'm rejoining the Marine Corps reserves with the intent of volunteering for a combat tour.

[IGOTMINE]

Ooops. My mistake..the Telegraph.

[templar]

"Estimated" number of KIA. This smacks of the Vietnam Combat Math of "We fired 10,000 rounds, therefore we must have killed 54 of the enemy." Granted this was in the Guardian, but unsettling nonetheless. Show the bodies.

That was my first thought as well. In two instances I am personaly familiar with a dead water buffalo was reported as three enemy dead (the cow was all that was found, with blood everywhere) and one of ours dead was all that was reported when I personally saw five that had to be dead. It seems that when the truth doesn't look the way we want it to, it sometimes gets interpreted till it does. Nobody's fault really, it's just sorta the way it works.

[AmericanVictory]

If you actually knew what happened in VietNam, you would know, that as here, the enemy would take away the bodies and deny their kills and casualties. For example, in the battle for the A Shau valley, the other side denied the kills and casualties, but as it happened their was a special forces unit behind their lines on the other side of their ridge line who saw and talled them taking quite a number of the bodies out which they then denied as kills. Later we were able to verify the actual kill numbers through statements of the NV commanders. After Abrams replaced the incompetent Westmoreland and dropped the emphasis on body counts, which was foolish, our numbers became increasingly accurate.