Free-fire zone

A free-fire zone in U.S. military parlance is a fire control measure, used for coordination between adjacent combat units. The definition used in the Vietnam War by U.S. troops may be found in field manual FM 6-20:

World War II

General Chuck Yeager in his autobiography describes his (and his associates) disapproval of shoot-anything-that-moves low level strafing missions during World War II (although they were not necessarily called "free-fire-zone" missions). He described his feeling that, had the U.S. lost the war, it might have been considered a criminal activity. In the game Chuck Yeager's Air Combat the player flies one of these missions, destroying any ground target within a certain area.

Vietnam War

Returning veterans, affected civilians, and others have said that U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam MACV, based on the assumption that all friendly forces had been cleared from the area, established a policy designating "free-fire zones" as areas in which: