Operation Speedy Express Operation Speedy Express was a controversial United States military operation of the Vietnam War conducted in the Mekong Delta provinces Kien Hoa and Vĩnh Bình . The operation was launched to prevent NLF ( Viet Cong ) units from interfering with pacification efforts and to interdict lines of NLF communication and deny them the use of base areas . Operation . In 1969 the 1st Brigade , 9th U . S . Infantry Division continued the operation in Định Tường Province , using night ambush tactics while the 2nd Brigade continued its mission with the Mobile Riverine Force . Although engagements in the Operation Speedy Express were typically small , the 9th Infantry Division fought several sizeable engagements . The objective was summarized by a U . S army publication to take the " war to the enemy in the Delta and sever his supply lines from Cambodia " . The U . S . military used 8 , 000 infantrymen , 50 artillery pieces , 50 helicopters and extensive aerial bombardment . The United States Air Force carried out 3 , 381 tactical air strikes by fighter bomber s . Controversies . The U . S . military claimed 10 , 889 enemy dead , with only 40 soldiers killed in this operation from the period of December 1968 to 31 May 1969 ( a kill ratio of 272 . 2 : 1 ) , but only 748 weapons were recovered ( a ratio of enemy killed to weapons seized of 14 . 6 : 1 ) . The U . S . Army after - action report attributed this to the fact the high percentage of kills made during night hours ( estimated at 40 % ) , and by air cavalry and other aerial units , as well as asserting that " many of the guerilla units were not armed with weapons " . The commander of the 9th Division , Major General Julian Ewell , was allegedly known to be obsessed with body count s and favorable kill ratios and said " the hearts and minds approach can be overdone . . . in the delta the only way to overcome VC control and terror is with brute force applied against the VC " . Controversy over the operation arose in June 1972 , when " Newsweek " s Saigon Bureau Chief , Kevin Buckley ( working with Alexander Shimkin ) , wrote an article titled " Pacification ' s Deadly Price " that questioned the spectacular ratio of U . S . dead to purported Vietcong , as well the small number of weapons recovered , and suggested that perhaps more than 5 , 000 of the dead were innocent civilians ( quoting an unnamed U . S . official ) . Although Buckley acknowledged that NLF structure and control in the region was extensive , he wrote that local hospitals had treated more wounds caused by U . S . firepower than by the NLF . Col . David Hackworth was a battalion commander during Speedy Express , according to him , " a lot of innocent Vietnamese civilians got slaughtered because of the Ewell - Hunt drive to have the highest count in the land . " Hackworth added that " the 9th Division had the lowest weapons - captured - to - enemy - killed ratio in Vietnam . " The book " Kill Anything That Moves " by Nick Turse devotes a chapter to Speedy Express . It reports that " free fire zones " were designated in the Mekong Delta where any human present could be killed . These zones helped the 9th Division achieve an unlikely enemy - to - GI kill ratio of 134 : 1 in April 1969 . More recently , former Senator Charles Hagel of Nebraska , a veteran of the Ninth Infantry , alleged that some U . S . commanders on the ground inflated the body count during the operation since this was how their success was judged .