For the PTSD Claims Assignment, I was assigned section 17. Below are going to be quotes from that section and what claims they would be classified as:

1. “And then she’ll just sit and listen while he says he cannot get it out of his head, about how if he had caught that fucking sniper, that enemy sniper he’d been trying to get, that’d been following them around, terrorizing their unit, if he’d have managed to kill him like he was supposed to, then the sniper wouldn’t have gotten off the shot that killed his buddy.”

This quote would be classified as a casual claim. A casual claim is an assertion of cause and effect or consequences that will occur under certain circumstances. In this case, Caleb is discussing how if he had caught a sniper, he could have saved his friends life, which is cause and effect. And the consequence of him not doing so, was him losing his friend in the battle.

• “So tonight, six years after Caleb’s service ended, Brannan is cautiously optimistic but ready for anything on Lasagna Night.”

This quote would be described as a numerical claim because it is describing the number of years that has passed relating to Caleb’s service. This quote can also be described as a comparative claim. This is because they are comparing Caleb 6 years ago to how Brennan now feels about Lasagna night, implying that the two correlate, which can also make it an analogy claim because the author is claiming something from one thing to another.

• “It’s April at the moment. But: “He’s processin’ somethin’ right now.”

This quote would be an attributive claim. This is because the author is putting in quotes what Caleb said, instead of saying it with a sense of confidence like other times in the section. This is showing the audience that Caleb said it and the author is not really sure what to believe, or shows that they do not know what he is processing.

• ‘“Daddy will be really happy,” she told the German shepherd sitting on her kitchen floor. “Of course, he’s too cranky to be happy about anything, and he’ll be mad because Katie won’t eat it because I spent all day makin’ it and the only thing, she wants to eat right now is pancakes.”’

This quote would again be represented as a casual claim because it is predicting what will happen under certain circumstances. In this case she is describing how Caleb will be as happy as he can be about lasagna night considering he is cranky all the time. And also how he will be mad Katie won’t eat the lasagna.

• “These are supposed to be her easy months, she sighs, April and May and June, before the anniversaries of his worst firefights—many of them in Ramadi; a lot of bad things happened in Ramadi—exacerbate his flashbacks and nightmares.”

This quote can be an illustrative claim. This type of claim is supposed to make the audience feel some sort of empathy when reading the passage. In this case the audience would feel a sort of empathy because the author is describing how Caleb had experienced a lot of hard and traumatic things in Ramadi