My troops were getting massacred and mauled by an enemy I couldn’t see, I couldn’t feel and I couldn’t touch—that nobody in the military system ever described them as anything other than Communism. They didn’t give it a race, they didn’t give it a sex, they didn’t give it an age. They never let me believe it was just a philosophy in a man’s mind. That was my enemy out there.
When asked why he did not report the incident sooner, Bernhardt explained that after the My Lai event, a colonel had visited Bernhardt’s firebase and inquired about the massacre, but Bernhardt “heard no further” about the event. Later, Bernhardt described how [high-ranking officials] came to the firebase and asked him to “not write my Congressman.” Furthermore, Bernhardt was ordered by the army “not to talk,” making Bernhardt question whether or not he could “trust people anymore.” (p. 51)