Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
If contact were to be made in these situations would the absence of civilians allow for a relative free-fire-Zone?
Just a brief clarification--the Free Fire Zone is a fire support coordination term that was warped far beyond its original meaning by news reporting in Vietnam and in some of the memoirs of that war. Its true meaning is an area where artillery or air ordnance can be fired or dropped without the requirement to coordinate the fires with any headquarters. Usually a Free Fire Area is a place out in the middle of nowhere. It is one of several fire support coordination measures established to prevent friendly fire casualties by regulating what fires can be delivered in an area of operations. During Vietnam it gained an "anything goes" connotation, a kind of hell-on-earth sort of place straight out of Dante devised by a nefarious U.S. military.