BEGIN THE ONE-HOUR EXERCISE

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 first section contains a variety of three different claims. This first is an evaluative claim. Charlene mentioned that their love is awesome and Steve mentioned that Charlene saved his life. It involves the judgment of their situation with each other. Another part of this section that is evaluative is the part of the journal that says “handsome” along with “well-kept.” The other claim mentioned in this journal section is when he “refers to his wife as ‘my bride’ after nine years.” This sentence is insanely illustrative. So the claim is an illustrative claim. For the reader, this section illustrates a picture of the guy and his bride. It lets the reader see how close they are to each other and what that connection does for them.Another part of this journal that is illustrative as well is the section that says “Hanging around their trailer one day, I see them handle each other with immense patience.” Again, the author is painting a picture of the couple for the reader to understand how the two act together when she is around. Lastly, Charlene is given a descriptive appearance towards the end of this paragraph. This is also an illustrative claim. “Charlene has long, graying dark hair parted down the middle…” This whole sentence is describing the way she looks. There is also a Factual Claim that is thrown into this first section as well. It is the last quote of the paragraph which is, “‘He loves me a lot,’ she answers. ‘I’ve never known love like this. He is…awesome.'” While this may not be true, since it is a direct quote there is always the possibility that it is true.

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.

• This section also has a factual claim. In the first sentence, the part that mentions his dad and Johnny being first cousins is the factual claim. This claim can be proved due to the indisputable evidence. In this section, there is also an evaluative claim. Charlene’s concern about Steve slipping into a depressive state is evaluative because it involves judgment about the character’s dynamic and relationship with each other. Another claim in this section is a casual claim. When the vortex is talked about in the passage that is the casual claim. It suggests that there was a cause-and-effect relationship between Steve’s military experience and his mental health and well-being.

“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.

• Within this section of the passage, there is a variety of claims sprinkled throughout. There is a factual claim right at the beginning of the text. The part that speaks about Steve being rated at 100 percent PTSD disabled is factual. This claim can be proved. This can also be considered a quantitative or numerical claim. What is given to the reader is a percentage and it depends on the reliability of the measurements. There are also illustrative claims. The situations talked about in this section are being illustrated to the reader.

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.

• In this section of the passage, there are also illustrative claims. The part that speaks of a house for the two of them and how it will be on the top of a hill is the illustrative part. These claims are used to draw a picture for the reader.

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.

• Towards the end of this section, there are a lot of illustrative claims. From the desert sun to the description of Caleb’s condition, all the descriptors are used to draw a picture for the reader.