Consider the experiences that the members of Charlie Company underwent in the months before My Lai that may have affected their behavior on March 16,1968. Seeing friends and comrades killed or maimed from snipers, booby trap bombs: The difficulty of identifying the "enemy", of distinguishing friendly civilians from Vietcong enemies: The growing belief that any Vietnamese man, woman or child might be a Vietnamese operative. The knowledge of the growing American opposition to the war back home