MACV Directive 88

MACV, the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, was a joint-service command created in February 1962, at a time of increased military assistance to South Vietnam. This document, MACV Directive 88, lists 110 “assessment metrics” for counter-insurgency measures. It led to the counting of number of kills of North Vietnamese or spent shells as measures of progress of the Vietnam War. However, using body counts as the metric for success didn’t tell the whole story. Nor did it keep the Communists from achieving their objectives.