Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
...I told him "don't complify - simplicate!"

Body counts are easy. We killed 5 of them, and suffered one WIA in the process. Easy. Sounds like we're winning.
You want to simplicate to the point of irrelevance...

You left out "...physical control and recovery of the body AND Weapons - usually for some form of exploitation." I would totally agree that what you posted was foolish -- I do not agree that if you add the important bit about their weapons (give that some thought...) and the potential for exploitation.
I recall as kid in kindergarden watching the news about Vietnam, and they would post the daily box score. US 30, NVA 240. etc. It was like following sports. Except, of course, that it isn't sports, and the score in of itself doesn't mean anything.
While you were in kindergarten I was adding to that box score in a unit that would not allow a KIA to be counted unless there was a weapon to go with it and that diligently tried to exploit each case and successfully did so on a number of occasions. So I know there is value if done properly as opposed to basing my opinion on dimly recalled TV Follies (That's what the MACV Press Briefings were called, with good reason).

The fact that a bunch of staff Colonels prostituted a process originated by the SecDef over the objections of many in-country makes your opening comment above even more poignant (in the painful and pertinent sense of the word):
If you brief senior leaders on certain stats every day, those stats take on an importance for the sake of the stat itself.
As I said, those are your contemporaries and their Bosses you're impugning, not mine.

That said, I do agree that can occur but that is misuse of the information and it amounts to doing what I specifically said should not be done -- and which you apparently ignored as you often do while searching for a riposte. I'll just repeat some of that for you:

""I would add that those figures should not be publicized in any way or released to the media because they will either misunderstand or misuse them -- more likely both -- and that will skew the military application (as it did in Viet Nam after mid 1966).(ADDED:A briefing is publicizing)
. . .
P.P.S

John and Bob's World are correct also in that it can be a useful measure of performance but not of effectiveness/outcome.[/B]""
More "how do you feel" about the score over time...measure that, if you can.
Apparently you changed your mind about the use as a measure of performance:
I see this as a measure of performance though, not effectiveness. Many factors go into what it takes to break the will of an opponent, so merely counting bodies only tells you that you are killing people.
Totally agree now as I did when you first wrote it.

I'm not a Sports fan so don't do scores and didn't get to watch Viet Nam on TV though I'm glad you did, you must've been a precocious little Kindergartener. However, I can measure an inability to determine the difference between appropriate and inappropriate uses of information and the appreciation of that difference...