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The speaker is David Bowman, a Vietnam veteran and a veteran of the San Francisco police force who suffered PTSD and talks about it. He is the author of the book "The Vietnam Experience." He is one of the 180 people interviewed in 1989 representing many different points of view. That was my goal with each interview, to encourage the speaker to tell me/the audience, how he/she experienced the 1960s. David did just that. His Vietnam experience was challenging to say the least. So was his experience as a San Francisco cop assigned to Berkeley and Oakland and other key locations in the bay area, right at the time when street demonstrations, both peaceful and violent, were a daily activity. He saw hippies shortly after the San Francisco Summer of Love brought so many of them to the city and he saw political activists who became violent.

The Vietnam War changed America and many of those who fought in it forever. Vietnam Vet David Bowman published a book describing what happened to him as a young soldier titled The Vietnam Experience. He also contributed to Dear America - Letters Home from Vietnam (the book and DVD) and to The Fifty Greatest Letters from America's Wars featuring his and others' letters home.

Bowman served as an infantryman from September 1967 through September 1968, with Company B, 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, and 1st Cavalry Division (Airborne)—the highest-decorated unit in the Vietnam War. When he returned home, he joined the San Francisco police in the late 1960s as a street cop with a beat.

I got the chance to interview David Bowman in 1989 as part of my 1990 television series on the 1960s. my team and I interviewed more than 200 individuals and ask each to describe what he witnessed and what effect it had on them. Bowman's experience was quite unique because after his time as a warrior in Vietnam, he took a job in San Francisco during the late 1960s when there was tension in America evidenced in San Francisco and Berkeley and Oakland by constant protests against the war and other forms of rebellion.

He describes the similarities between protecting his base in Vietnam and protecting the police department facility in Golden Gate Park. He describes hippie families and confronting political radicals. He remembers a time when radicals planted a bomb that killed several of his colleagues.

Of course every story is unique and my channel presents various experiences at that time for and against the Vietnam War and what the American government was doing and saying. I appreciate David not only for his service as a soldier and as a police officer but for his ability to articulate his experiences with such intensity.

If this interview has meaning for you, please click the super thanks button on the right side below the video screen and support my efforts to present more clips from my personal archive.

David Bowman is not alone. The National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study estimated that about 30% of male Vietnam veterans and 27% of female Vietnam veterans had experienced PTSD at some point in their lives.

When it comes to police officers & PTSD, officers in urban areas have developed PTSD ranging from 12% to 32%.

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a condition that can develop after a person has experienced or witnessed a traumatic event. Vietnam War veterans experienced a particularly high incidence of PTSD due to the nature of the conflict and the conditions under which they served.

Intense combat experiences: The Vietnam War was characterized by intense combat, with many soldiers exposed to enemy fire, witnessing death or serious injury, and participating in violent engagements. Such experiences can have a lasting psychological impact.

Guerilla warfare: The Vietnam War involved fighting against an enemy that employed guerilla tactics, making it difficult to distinguish between combatants and civilians. This led to feelings of constant danger, heightened anxiety, and mistrust, even among the local population.

Lack of support: Upon returning home, many Vietnam veterans faced a society that did not fully understand or appreciate their experiences. They often encountered hostility, rather than support, which made it difficult for them to adjust to civilian life and cope with their traumatic experiences.

I’d also like to thank David Bowman for giving me his perspective on it all.David Hoffman filmmaker