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The soldiers in Vietnam were specifically trained to do that and the M16 rifles of that era were specifically designed. There is a long history behind it. They did an exhaustive study of 3 million battlefield reports from World War II and they concluded aimed accurate fire was useless as targets were on the move. They wanted to equip every infantry troop with an automatic rifle. The World War II German army had considerable success by equipping whole platoons with sub-machine guns and that was studied too.
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Well, the concept certainly caught on---sadly. Now days, the average soldier's basic marksmanship skills (which aren't very good) are testimony.
Don't know why horses' fanny bureaucrats are unaware that soldiers who can hit what they aim at are far more effective. Good marksmanship skills don't precude them from using supressing, spray and pray, or covering fire when it's called for.
If you want to know the abysmal degree to which soldiers are trained with firearms, then read some of Farnum's Quips. He gets correspondence from soldiers all the time. Front line troops are well trained, but most of the US Army is not. They've never been taught to live with loaded weapons. Many students in Farnums' urban rifle courses are military who've paid for their own training.