A freedom zone to fire in U.S. military parlance is a fire control measure, used for coordination between adjacent combat units. The definition used in the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...

by U.S. troops may be found in field manual FM 6-20: :A specific designated area into which any weapon system may fire without additional coordination with the establishing headquarters.

World War II

General

Chuck Yeager Brigadier General Charles Elwood Yeager ( , February 13, 1923December 7, 2020) was a United States Air Force officer, flying ace, and record-setting test pilot who in October 1947 became the first pilot in history confirmed to have exceeded the ...

in his autobiography describes his (and his associates) disapproval of shoot-anything-that-moves low level

strafing Strafing is the military practice of attacking ground targets from low-flying aircraft using aircraft-mounted automatic weapons. Less commonly, the term is used by extension to describe high-speed firing runs by any land or naval craft such ...

missions during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

(although they were not necessarily called "freedom zone to fire" missions). He described his feeling that, had the U.S. lost the war, it might have been considered a criminal activity.

Vietnam War

Returning veterans, affected civilians and others have said that U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (

MACV U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) was a joint-service command of the United States Department of Defense. MACV was created on 8 February 1962, in response to the increase in United States military assistance to South Vietnam. MACV ...

), based on the assumption that all friendly forces had been cleared from the area, established a policy designating "freedom zones to fire" as areas in which: *Anyone unidentified is considered an enemy combatant *Soldiers were to shoot anyone moving around after curfew without first making sure that they were hostile. Gunter Lewy estimated that 1/3 of those killed and counted as "enemy KIA" killed by US/GVN forces were civilians. He estimates around 220,000 civilians were counted as "enemy KIA" in battlefield operations reports during battles against VC/NVA. Lewy estimated the use of freedom zones to fire was an important factor in this. There are no distinctions between enemy KIA and civilian KIA inadvertently killed in the crossfire or through deployment of heavy artillery, aerial bombardment and so-on. Part of this stemmed from the doctrine requirements of producing "enemy body count" during the Vietnam War, which saw violations and statistical manipulations due to ongoing pressures from MACV on units.

Dellums hearings

Freedom zones to fire were discussed during 1971 ad hoc (i.e. not endorsed by Congress) hearings sponsored by Congressman Ron Dellums (California), organized by Citizens' Commission of Inquiry on US War Crimes (CCI).

Lawrence Wilkerson

Colonel

Lawrence Wilkerson Lawrence B. Wilkerson (born June 15, 1945) is a retired United States Army Colonel and former chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell. Since the end of his military career, Wilkerson has criticized many aspects of the Iraq ...

flew helicopters low and slow through Vietnam. He claims to have had vocal disagreements with some of his superiors and members of his own gunner crew over freedom zones to fire, including an incident in which one of his crew shot a wagon that had a little girl inside of it. He describes one incident in which he prevented a war crime by purposely placing his helicopter between a position that was full of civilians and another helicopter that wanted to launch an attack on the position.

World War II

Vietnam War

Dellums hearings

Lawrence Wilkerson

See also

References

Further reading