Flashback-- Norman Bowker (Ch.15)

In chapter 15, the author depicts a scene after the war where Norman Bowker, an old war friend, drives around his home town obcessed by a flashback. In this particular flashback, Bowker is plagued by the time he almost won the Silverr Star award but didn't. I think this flashback was incorporated into the novel because it shows that the war never quite leaves you. He imagines telling everyone in his town about his failure, the failure in which his friend died. I think it also shows that this soldier suffered from PTSD before it was studdied by phycisians. He cannot get over a mistake and cannot get it out of his head. I am not sure whether it is like that for all of the soldiers, but I think that it is quite likely that most soldiers have scenes that wake them up at night or hit them unexpectadely. Unfortunately for Bowker, his flashbackk was not a simple or random scene, his hit him everyday and hurt him everyday. The author's flashback was the man he killed. I researched PTSD and as I assumed, the modern understanding of PTSD resulted from the Vietnam War.