Granted…in soldiers, the incidence of PTSD goes up with the number of tours and amount of combat experienced.

This short piece of the section sounds very casual and thus, be considered a casual claim. The reason I say this is because by definition a casual claim sounds more like a cause and effect. The cause that is brought to our attention is the number of tours and time served, and the effect is having PTSD. It looks switched around as sort of an effect and its cause but it is still getting the message through as a casual claim.

Caleb knows that a person whose problem is essentially that he can’t adapt to peacetime Alabama sounds, to many, like a pussy.

When reading this, I find this to be an Evaluative claim. The reason I say this is because the author is speaking sort of on Caleb’s behalf. Saying that “Caleb knows” and using words like “essentially” gives the author a chance to come to their own conclusion based on the data. While it isn’t hard data, it is still a situation that the author chose to break down and analyze to come to their own conclusion and use Caleb as a medium to help prove the point.

In two tours, he was in at least 20 explosions—IEDs, vehicle-borne IEDs, RPGs.

This one is very simple. It is factual according to the definition posted. It can be proven without a doubt.

When Caleb was finally screened for the severity of his TBI, Brannan says he got the second-worst score in the whole 18-county Gulf Coast VA system, which serves more than 50,000 veterans.

This is a combination of two claims. This is a comparison because it uses Caleb and directly cites the other group in the 18-county Gulf Coast VA system. The next sentence adds a factual element to it with the actual quantitative data. Without the last sentence it could just be considered a comparison but that little number added at the end in itself it s factual but only strengthens the case for the comparative claim.

Symptoms start at depression and alienation, including the “compassion fatigue” suffered by social workers and trauma counselors. But some spouses and loved ones suffer symptoms that are, as one medical journal puts it, “almost identical to PTSD except that indirect exposure to the traumatic event through close contact with the primary victim of trauma” is the catalyst. Basically your spouse’s behavior becomes the “T” in your own PTSD. If sympathy for Caleb is a little lacking, you can imagine what little understanding exists for Brannan.

Here we have two or three different claims used together, depending on where you decide to stop or start a “claim”. Lets start with the first sentence. Bringing in the symptoms of PTSD like “depression”, “alienation”, and “compassion fatigue” makes this a categorial or factual claim. I say this because it is bringing in actual symptoms but the fact that it names symptoms, especially more than one, gives it that categorial feel to it. Now the second sentence is also kind of two but also could just be one. What I mean is the author pulls a quote and the quote in itself is an analogy of some form so you could say analogy and also uses the quote to call it the “catalyst” which is an evaluation and assumption made by the author. So I’d also call it a sort of evaluative claim. Then that last sentence where the the author uses “if” and then “you can imagine” makes it sound like a casual claim. It is a cause and effect but also has a hint of evaluative. Basically this section is a “claim soup” with the way it uses different kinds to push its message just as effectively.