Section 12

“By this point, you might be wondering, and possibly feeling guilty about wondering, why Brannan doesn’t just get divorced.”

-This quote can be categorized as an Ethical/Moral claim and a Recommendation/Proposal claim. The phrase, “possibly feeling guilty” could be seen as an Ethical or Moral claim because it places a judgment on a social situation, such as divorce. The author assumes that the reader’s judgement regarding divorce is creating a feeling of guilt. It could also be a Recommendation or Proposal Claim because of the phrases “you might be wondering” and “why Brannan doesn’t just get divorced.” These quotes help to convince an audience to of a certain course of action, which in this case is divorce.

“In the wake of Vietnam, 38 percent of marriages failed within the first six months of a veteran’s return stateside; the divorce rate was twice as high for vets with PTSD as for those without. Vietnam vets with severe PTSD are 69 percent more likely to have their marriages fail than other vets.”

-These sentences contain factual, evaluative, and causal claims.  The facts are presented as percentages, which is indisputable evidence, and they are dependent on who defines PTSD. When “severe PTSD” is mentioned, it is an evaluative claim because what qualifies as “severe PTSD” involves judgment of characteristics. PTSD is said to cause divorce rates to increase, which is a causal claim.

“Army records also show that 65 percent of active-duty suicides, which now outpace combat deaths, are precipitated by broken relationships. And veterans, well, one of them dies by suicide every 80 minutes.”

– These sentences contain factual, numerical, and causal claims.  The facts are presented as percentages, which is indisputable evidence, and they are dependent on who defines PTSD. A numerical claim is made when the author includes the statistic of a soldier committing suicide every 80 minutes. A causal claim is made when PTSD is said to cause broken relationships, which in turn causes increased suicides.

“But even ignoring that though vets make up 7 percent of the United States, they account for 20 percent of its suicides —or that children and teenagers of a parent who’s committed suicide are three times more likely to kill themselves …”

– These sentences contain factual and causal claims.  The facts are presented as percentages of veterans and suicide rates, which is indisputable evidence, and they are dependent on who defines PTSD. A causal claim is made when PTSD is said to cause veterans to commit suicide, which in turn causes their children and teenagers to commit suicide.

“But she’s also there for those FOV users who, like her, have decided to stay. “I have enormous respect for Caleb,” she explains if you ask her why. ‘He has never stopped fighting for this family. Now, we’ve had little breaks from therapy, but he never stopped going to therapy. I love him,’ she repeats, defensively at times.”

-These sentences contain a causal claim. The author is expressing the reasons and circumstances that caused Brannan to stay with Caleb, instead of divorcing him. It explains that Caleb “never stopped fighting for this family” and that Brannan loves him. Caleb also kept consistent with his therapy.