(1) Imagine there’s a murderer in your house. And it is dark outside, and the electricity is out. Imagine your nervous system spiking, readying you as you feel your way along the walls, the sensitivity of your hearing, the tautness in your muscles, the alertness shooting around inside your skull. And then imagine feeling like that all the time.
-This whole section is a long analogy claim, along as a categorical claim. The author lists the symptoms of PTSD that Caleb Vines faces because of his mental illness. Besides just listing his symptoms, the author compares his symptoms to the nervous and scared feelings one would get at a murder house.
(2)He’s one of 103,200, or 228,875, or 336,000 Americans who served in Iraq or Afghanistan and came back with PTSD, depending on whom you ask, and one of 115,000 to 456,000 with traumatic brain injury.
-The author uses a numerical claims when he mentions the amount of soldiers who came back with PTSD and TBI, who served in Iraq or Afghanistan.
-When the author states “depending on who you ask,” it means that the definition of TBI is not exact and doctors may have different diagnoses for it.
(3) Even doctors can’t say for sure exactly why he has flashbacks, why he could be standing in a bookstore when all of a sudden he’s sure he’s in Ramadi, the pictures in his brain disorienting him among the stacks, which could turn from stacks to rows of rooftops that need to be scanned for snipers.
-This quote is a causal claim. Even though the quote states that the doctors don’t know the exact reason for these flashbacks, we do know that the cause is this mental illness called PTSD.
(4) The divorce rate was twice as high for vets with PTSD as for those without. Vietnam vets with severe PTSD are 69 percent more likely to have their marriages fail than other vets.
-These two sentences are factual and causal claims. These facts are used by the author to show the effects that PTSD causes in marriage relationships.
(5) The VA also endorses eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR), which is based on the theory that memories of traumatic events are, in effect, improperly stored, and tries to refile them by discussing those memories while providing visual or auditory stimulus.
-This quote is a definition and factual claim. The author mentions (EMDR) and follows it with a factual definition of what the therapy is.
(6) Of the soldiers coming home with PTSD now, he says, “You need time. You need time, and perspective.”
-The use of the word “need” makes this a proposal claim that soldiers returning with PTSD need time and perspective.
Counterintuitive 