Mike DomitrzPresident, Author, and Speaker on Respect, The Center for Respect, Inc. · Author & Speaker on Respect for Schools, Corporations, & the Military since 1990 (has reached

The real meaning of Body Count

3 May 2025 · 0 min

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In this excerpt from Mike Domitrz's YouTube video "The real meaning of Body Count," the speaker, who works with U.S. military forces worldwide, clarifies that the term "body count" historically refers to the number of enemy combatants killed, not a metric of personal achievement. He shares that he trains Special Forces personnel, who experience lasting trauma from taking lives, emphasizing that killing is not a source of pride. The speaker then condemns the popular cultural practice of equating a person's number of sexual partners with a military "body count," arguing that such comparisons trivialize the serious psychological burden carried by service members and should be challenged.

I work with the US military all over the world. Do you know what a body count is actually in reference to? It's kills. By the way, let me be clear. Meet somebody in the military who has to do that. I work with them. Special Forces, I've trained them. Not in Special Forces. They bring me to do this. And they'll tell you the trauma they live with the rest of their lives. It's not a prideful thing that they have to do that. So, for you to relate sexual partners with the killing of people and doing it proudly, we got to call some stuff out.