Section 22

People around her think she needs a break, needs to rest, to take care of herself. “I know I’m not responsible for all these people,” Brannan says. “But at the same time, nobody else is, either.”

This quote from the article is an attributive claim since the authors takes Brannan says, using her quote to make a claim. While Brannan makes a evaluative claim since she claims that she is not responsible for people.

With a half million disability cases stuck in a VA backlog, and an estimated 25 percent of Iraq/Afghanistan troops with PTSD not seeking treatment, her logic isn’t entirely off. 

In this section, this is a numerical and evaluative claim. The author states the number of disability cases in the VA backlog and gives us an estimate percent of Iran and Afghanistan troops that have untreated PTSD. This evaluative claim because the author uses these numbers to back up his logic.

And the vet who got fired from his job for being unstable and is now homeless, like 13,000 other vets under 30, who now lives with his wife and teenager in his car.

The author writes a causal, numerical, and evaluative claim. Causal claim because veterans are now homeless since they been fired from their job for being unstable. Numerical since the author mentions that 13,000 veterans under the age 30 are also getting fired from their jobs and becoming homeless. Evaluative because the author argues veterans who get fired from their job will end up living with his wife and teenager in his car.

“They will hang in there until the last dog is dead,” Danna told me of military spouses. She saw her husband through peripheral neuropathy, PTSD, prison, Agent Orange-linked disease, saw her son suffer living with a ball of anxiety and succumbing to drugs, and she doesn’t regret one day.

This is an illustrative and attributive claim because the author describes Danna’s experience in staying to help her husband and son that were suffering mental illness as they will hang in there until the last dog is dead. The author is referring that the mother will stick until the end to help her family even when it gets bad. He describe Danna’s experience and her family of distress in a way to evoke sympathy. This an attributive claim because the author takes a quote said by Danna since he is passing along someone else claim.

To the sound of the running washing machine, the ‘thump, thump, thump’ of tennis shoes in the dryer, and the not so romantic smell of the kitty litter box, he held me for a moment and rocked me back and forth…and we danced. It lasted maybe 30 seconds…a brief moment in the middle of a chaotic day and a difficult week…but a brief moment that I’ve stored in my heart. A light in the darkness.”

In this last section, the author writes an illustrative, attributive, analogy claim. This is an illustrative claim because the Brannan illustrate an experience she had that maybe not have been a typical romantic thing but a brief moment that I’ve stored in my heart. This experience evokes ease and comfort to the audience. This was an analogy claim because at the end, this experience she had with her husband is compare to a light in the darkness. A good moment that occur in her usual chaotic messy daily life. This is an attributive since the author isn’t making this claim but is passing along this claim of Brannan’s experience with her husband.