Caleb has been home since 2006, way more than enough time for Brannan to catch his symptoms. 

This sentence contains both a factual claim and an evaluative claim. “Caleb has been home since 2006,” is a hard truth that can not be denied. The evaluative claim comes with “way more than enough time for Brannan to catch his symptoms,” as it involves the judgment of the situation.

The house, in a subdivision a little removed from one of many shopping centers in a small town in the southwest corner of Alabama, is often quiet as a morgue. 

“ is often quiet as a morgue,” is an analogy claim, as it is comparing the house’s silence to that of a morgue.

You can hear the cat padding around. The air conditioner whooshes, a clock ticks. 

These sentences can be considered a recommendation claim, as it encourages the reader to imagine these sounds and envelop that point of view.

When a sound erupts—Caleb screaming at Brannan because she’s just woken him up from a nightmare, after making sure she’s at least an arm’s length away in case he wakes up swinging—the ensuing silence seems even denser.

This sentence contains two causal claims and an evaluative claim. “Caleb screaming at Brannan because she’s just woken him up from a nightmare,” is causal because it shows that Caleb screams when Brannan wakes him. “ after making sure she’s at least an arm’s length away in case he wakes up swinging,” can be causal because she is taking precautions because of the event that Caleb begins swinging when he wakes. “the ensuing silence seems even denser,” is a claim evaluating the properties of the silence.

 Even when everyone’s in the family room watching TV, it’s only connected to Netflix and not to cable, since news is often a trigger.

Another causal claim. When the family wants to watch TV, only Netflix is played as a result of news networks being triggering for Caleb.

 Brannan and Caleb can be tense with their own agitation, and tense about each other’s. 

This sentence is a evaluative claim judging how they act with their agitations.

Their German shepherd, a service dog trained to help veterans with PTSD, is ready to alert Caleb to triggers by barking, or to calm him by jumping onto his chest. 

This contains both a definitional claim and a categorical claim. “Their German Shepard” is defined to be a service dog trained to help with PTSD. The different methods the dog does to help treat PTSD falls under a category.

This PTSD picture is worse than some, but much better, Brannan knows, than those that have devolved into drug addiction and rehab stints and relapses.

This has a comparative claim, with the two things being compared is Brannan and Caleb’s struggle with their PTSD and other couple’s own run-ins with PTSD.

 She has not, unlike military wives she advises, ever been beat up.

This could be considered a factual claim, since the contrary can not be proved that she has gotten beat up by her husband.

 Nor jumped out of her own bed when she got touched in the middle of the night for fear of being raped, again. Still.

Same has the previous sentence, this is a factual claim, since it can not be proven otherwise.

“Sometimes I can’t do the laundry,” Brannan explains, reclining on her couch. “And it’s not like, ‘Oh, I’m too tired to do the laundry,’ it’s like, ‘Um, I don’t understand how to turn the washing machine on.’ I am looking at a washing machine and a pile of laundry and my brain is literally overwhelmed by trying to figure out how to reconcile them.” 

This passage is a big evaluative claim. It is evaluating her ability to work a washing machine, and how it is sometimes not there.

She sounds like she might start crying, not because she is, but because that’s how she always sounds, like she’s talking from the top of a clenched throat, tonally shaky and thin.

This is both an analogy claim and an evaluative claim. The writer judges her tone by saying it sounds like she is about to cry. The writer also compares her tone to talking at the top of a clenched throat, creating an analogy between the two.

 She looks relaxed for the moment, though, the sun shining through the windows onto her face in this lovely leafy suburb. 

Two evaluative claims here, one judging on how Brannan looks relaxed, and one on the quality of the “leafy suburb.”

We raise the blinds in the afternoons, but only if we are alone. When we hear Caleb pulling back in the driveway, we jump up and grab their strings, plunging the living room back into its usual necessary darkness.

This is a causal claim in both sentences. Because Caleb leaves, they pull the blinds up to let in the light, and because Caleb comes back from work, the family lowers the blinds back down.

The Vineses’ wedding album is gorgeous, leather-bound, older and dustier than you might expect given their youth. 

This is both a categorical claim with the category being the qualities of the Vineses’ wedding album, and since it is judging the qualities, it is also a evaluative claim.

Brannan is 32 now, but in her portraits with the big white dress and lacy veil she’s not even old enough to drink. 

This is a quantitative claim, as it analyzes the exact numerical age of both Brannan at the time of the wedding and in the present.

There were 500 people at the ceremony. 

Another quantitative claim, as it lists the number of people at the wedding.

Even the mayor was there.

Factual claim. It is simply a statement that is true.

 And there’s Caleb, slim, in a tux, three years older than Brannan at 22, in every single picture just about the smilingest motherfucker you’ve ever seen, in a shy kind of way.

There is a categorical claim with the category describing Caleb at his wedding. At the end of the sentence, it evaluates the demeanor of Caleb as being very smiley in shy way, creating an evaluative claim.

Now, he’s rounder, heavier, bearded, and long-haired, obviously tough even if he weren’t prone to wearing a COMBAT INFANTRYMAN cap, but still not the guy you picture when you see his “Disabled Veteran” license plates. 

There is a categorical claim describing how Caleb is now. There is an evaluative claim judging on how he is tough regardless of the cap he wears. There is another evaluative claim saying that he is not the guy you would expect to see.

Not the old ‘Nam guy with a limp, or maybe the young legless Iraq survivor, that you’d expect.

This would be considered a comparative claim, as it is comparing how David’s condition as a disabled veteran is different from stereotypical views on disabled vets from both Vietnam and Iraq.