<P> Nick Turse, in his 2013 book, Kill Anything that Moves, argues that a relentless drive toward higher body counts, a widespread use of free - fire zones, rules of engagement where civilians who ran from soldiers or helicopters could be viewed as VC, and a widespread disdain for Vietnamese civilians led to massive civilian casualties and endemic war crimes inflicted by U.S. troops . One example cited by Turse is Operation Speedy Express, an operation by the 9th Infantry Division, which was described by John Paul Vann as, in effect, "many My Lais". </P> <P> Air force captain, Brian Wilson, who carried out bomb - damage assessments in free - fire zones throughout the delta, saw the results firsthand . "It was the epitome of immorality...One of the times I counted bodies after an air strike--which always ended with two napalm bombs which would just fry everything that was left--I counted sixty - two bodies . In my report I described them as so many women between fifteen and twenty - five and so many children--usually in their mothers' arms or very close to them--and so many old people ." When he later read the official tally of dead, he found that it listed them as 130 VC killed . </P> <P> The ROK Capital Division purportedly conducted the Bình An / Tây Vinh massacre in February / March 1966 . The 2nd Marine Brigade purportedly conducted the Binh Tai Massacre on 9 October 1966 . In December 1966, the Blue Dragon Brigade purportedly conducted the Bình Hòa massacre . The Second Marine Brigade conducted the Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất massacre on 12 February 1968 . South Korean Marines purportedly conducted the Hà My massacre on 25 February 1968 . According to a study conducted in 1968 by a Quaker - funded Vietnamese - speaking American couple, Diane and Michael Jones, there were at least 12 mass - killings conducted by South Korean forces which approached the scale of the My Lai Massacre with reports of thousands of routine murders on civilians primarily the elderly, women and children . A separate study by a RAND Corporation employee Terry Rambo conducted interviews in 1970 in ARVN / civilian areas on reported Korean atrocities . Widespread reports of deliberate mass - killings were reported to have occurred, alleging that these were systemic, deliberate policies to massacre civilians with murders running into the hundreds . These policies are also reported by US commanders, with one US Marine General stating "whenever the Korean marines received fire "or think (they got) fired on from a village...they'd divert from their march and go over and completely level the village...it would be a lesson to (the Vietnamese)." Another Marine commander Gen. Robert E. Cushman Jr. added, "we had a big problem with atrocities attributed to them, which I sent on down to Saigon ." Investigations by Korean civic groups have alleged there were at - least 9000 civilians massacred by ROK forces . </P> <P> The ARVN suffered 254,256 recorded combat deaths between 1960 and 1974, with the highest number of recorded deaths being in 1972, with 39,587 combat deaths . According to Guenter Lewy, the ARVN suffered between 171,331 and 220,357 deaths during the war . R.J. Rummel estimated that ARVN lost between 219,000 and 313,000 deaths during the war including in 1975 and prior to 1960 . </P>

How many viet cong soldiers died in the vietnam war