Body count

In combat, a body count is often based on the number of confirmed kills, but occasionally only an estimate.

Historian Christian Appy states "search and destroy was the principal tactic; and the enemy body count was the primary measure of progress" in the US strategy of attrition.

While this motivated the Rhodesian personnel to kill large numbers of guerrillas, it may have led them to attack civilians and murder prisoners.

The emphasis on the 'kill rate' may have partly been the result of the influence of American and Australian Vietnam War veterans who volunteered to fight for Rhodesia.

Critics claimed that Franks was only attempting to evade bad publicity, while supporters pointed to the failure of body counts to give an accurate impression of the state of the war in Vietnam.

This usage gained further popularity in 2020 on the social media app TikTok, where users would ask strangers what their "body count" was.