[DesertRhino]

A flashback is a whiff of diesel or Jet fuel. Or a song that makes you think “oh yeah”. A flashback is jumping out of your skin when you didn’t know that giant firework was about to be fired off.

It isn’t literally thinking you are back in a war. That’s a cop out perpetrated by the movies.

[BBell]

Maybe he had a flashback about being pulled over by the V.C. police.sarc

[hinckley buzzard]

A "flashback" can be a whole lot more vivid than you think. That having been said, however, no one ever said, in the middle of a flashback, "I am a Vietnam combat veteran." If he was actually having a flashback he wouldn't think of himself as a veteran but as a soldier.