Section 21: 

Who he is now is a handsome guy in his 60s with a white beard, big but well kept, who refers to his wife as “my bride” after nine years. Hanging around their trailer one day, I see them handle each other with immense patience, even when their computer takes forever to load and they can’t find the files they’re looking for because they’ve been crappily cataloged and it’s not clear whose fault that is. Charlene has long, graying dark hair parted down the middle and super-serious eyes, which she has to lower to compose herself for a minute when I ask her, alone, if she saved Steve’s life. “He loves me a lot,” she answers. “I’ve never known love like this. He is…awesome.”

• This paragraph is a perfect example of an illustrative claim. The author’s descriptive language regarding Steve and Charlen’s physical appearance and relationship paints an ideal picture of two old people in love. There is also an example of a causal claim in this paragraph. When the reporter asks Charlene if she saved Steve’s life, she takes a moment to take in what he says. The reader can tell that the reporter brought up Charlene’s deep emotions to the surface {cause and effect}. The segment detailing Steve and Charlene’s process with the computer search is an evaluative and illustrative claim because the reporter is evaluating or analyzing the couple’s dilemma with vivid, almost poetic detail. The evaluative claim especially shows through in the line “forever to load.” That line is based on the perception of the reporter. I would also like to add that the reporter writes like he is an expert on Steve and Charlene’s life because he witnessed their personal life firsthand.    

These most recent years, Steve is funnier—after all, he’s not just any Carson; his dad and Johnny were first cousins—but it’s not all good days. Sometimes, Charlene says, “I can feel him slipping down—it’s like this…vortex, this hole. And I try to grab him, like, ‘No! Don’t go down there!’ He can still get really depressed.” And hypervigilant. He doesn’t like living on Five Cent Ranch Road, which runs through a decidedly vulnerable valley.

• The segment “his dad and Johnny were first cousins” is a factual claim because it is an undeniable fact that they are cousins. I would also say that these sentences are examples of categorical claims because it is detailing Steve’s PTSD symptoms. Things like hypervigilance and depression can be categorized as PTSD symptoms. 

“She saved my life,” Steve says of Charlene, without my asking. Of the soldiers coming home with PTSD now, he says, “You need time. You need time, and perspective.” Decades after his service, the VA rated Steve at 100 percent PTSD disabled, but he’s found his way to his version of a joyful life. Although, he qualifies, he saw guys get thrown around in explosions the way Caleb got thrown around in explosions, but he can’t say how their lives turned out in the long run because in his war, with that less-advanced gear, those guys usually died.

• Due to witnessing soldiers die in battle, Steve has severe, lifelong PTSD. This paragraph is an example of a causal claim because of the author’s choice in writing about Steve’s traumatic war experiences after reporting that he still qualifies as “100 percent PTSD disabled” despite him finding joy in his life. This can also be a factual claim because the VA rating Steve as 100 percent PTSD disabled is indisputable. The author mentioning Caleb can also be seen as an analogy claim since it is linking two people together, or “claiming a similarity of one thing to another,” according to Professor Hodges definition of an analogy claim.         

Finally, Steve and Charlene find what they’re looking for on their computer: pictures of the land they bought nearby. Steve’s building an artist’s studio for Charlene on it, and eventually, hopefully, a house for the two of them. At the very top of a largely uninhabited hill, it will be hell—and sometimes impossible—to get down in winter because of the snow, but Steve doesn’t care, and wants to grow old with Charlene and die up there. At that elevation, with that vantage point, it’s one of the most defensible pieces of land in town.

• This part of the piece can be considered as an illustrative claim since the reporter goes into almost poetic detail about the hill Steve wants to use to build a house and art studio on. The segment “it’s one of the most defensivle pieces of land in town” can also be seen as a causal and evaluative claim because it is clearly taken from the words of Steve, who is suffering from PTSD. His PTSD probably drove him to buy this hill because it is defensible, or can easily be protected from potential dangers. The fact that the reporter mentions the elevation and vantage point of the hill is also extremely evaluative.  

In the Vines’ household in Alabama, at any unpredictable time of night, the nightmare starts in Iraq.

“The desert sun is blinding, invasive; all eyes blink roughly with under-eyelid dust. It smells like blood, even before the shot slices through the Humvee and strikes Caleb in the chest. The vehicle stops, the other four guys get out, hollering, the rest of the unit firing their weapons, that awful echo at the end of an M16 round. Someone’s yelling for the medic and an indiscernible string of noises seeps out of Caleb’s mouth while he’s dying. He’s dying. He’s bleeding warm and fast, and he’s not going to make it.

‘Our brains can do such odd things,” Brannan says after she wakes up, shaky, the next morning. “Still don’t get how I can so vividly dream of somewhere I’ve never actually been.’”

• In this section of the piece, Brannan is having a nightmare about her husband getting shot in the chest while fighting in Iraq. These lines can be seen as categorical claims because it brings Brennan’s hypervigilance to life for the reader. Her having war-related nightmares puts her in the group of veteran wives who are traumatized by their husbands’ PTSD symptoms.