Category: E03: Critical Reading

PTSD Claims- DudeInTheBack

Part 04

1. Granted, diagnosing PTSD is a tricky thing.

Claim: saying that ptsd diagnosises are tricky. explains in later passage saying how it is tricky

2. the incidence of PTSD goes up with the number of tours and amount of combat experienced.

Claim: does not give proof of this claim

3. As with most psychiatric diagnoses, there are no measurable objective biological characteristics to identify it.

Claim: saying that it cannot be identified with things causing the illness. its all in the brain

4. Doctors have to go on hunches and symptomology rather than definitive evidence.

Claim: should prove that doctors have to go on hunches and don’t have definite evidence to go on

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

Claim: saying calebs situation most people would say he’s a pussy for it.

6. Now if you’re knocked unconscious, or have double vision, or exhibit other signs of a brain injury, you have to rest for a certain period of time

Claim: stating the new rule for safety

7. but that rule didn’t go into effect in theater until 2010, after Caleb was already out of the service.

Claim: showing that the rule was made after calebs service, it could have helped caleb

8. Unlike PTSD, secondary traumatic stress doesn’t have its own entry in the DSM

Claim: secondary traumatic stress cannot enter the brain

  • end of one hour

Critical Reading

Section 6

“She mirrors…she just mirrors” her dad’s behavior, Brannan says. She can’t get Katie to stop picking at the sores on her legs, sores she digs into her own skin with anxious little fingers. She is not, according to Brannan, “a normal, carefree six-year-old.”

-it is a interesting thing to see their kids copy their Parents PTSD actions.Especially at such a young age they will pick up anything.

Different studies of the children of American World War II, Korea, and Vietnam vets with PTSD have turned up different results: “45 percent” of kids in one small study “reported significant PTSD signs”

-Kids who parents show up with PTSD 45% of them appear to have the same signs as their parents.

-I believe that kids show more signs than their parents because of their young ages they will pick it up faster and it will be apart of their personalty for a good part of their lives.

But then in 2003, a team of Dutch and Israeli researchers meta-analyzed 31 of the papers on Holocaust survivors’ families, and concluded—to the fury of some clinicians—that when more rigorous controls were applied, there was no evidence for the intergenerational transmission of trauma

-When there is a more controlled environment the chances of trauma is less.

Holocaust survivors “had more resources and networks, wider family members and community to support them to adapt to their new circumstances after a war.” They were not, in other words, expected to man up and get over it. 

– I don’t believe that the reason why the  Holocaust survivors trauma rates were lower because they had more resources to help aid them.

-I think that they had were just in a different environment then the solider coming back from the war.

-An their kids didn’t have any signs because they would just want to forget about their time there. An would just hide there trauma from them.

EO3 Critical Reading – thebeard

Section 17 

 1. Later, she reminds me that Lasagna Night can come apart in an instant, if Caleb has a “bad PTSD moment.”

  • Lasagna Night has probably fallen apart many times before since she says that she is reminded.
  • Caleb probably has PTSD moments a lot that causes problems at home.

2. These are supposed to be her easy months, she sighs, April and May and June, before the anniversaries of his worst firefights—many of them in Ramadi; a lot of bad things happened in Ramadi—exacerbate his flashbacks and nightmares.

  • These months are supposed to be easier, Caleb hasn’t had many PTSD moments in these months in the past from what it seems.
  • Caleb probably wasn’t deployed during these months when he was in war or he wasn’t in the fight.
  • The worst of his firefights must happen in month after June.

3. That’s usually September through January, the “really bad” months, whereas in the spring, she gets a bit of “vacation,” time to clean up the house and catch up on work, rest.

  • From September through January Caleb has a lot of bad PTSD moments.
  • He probably has bad flashbacks of what happened during those months when he was in active duty.
  • In spring Brannan gets time off from the PTSD moments. Caleb may not be home or he is more calm and doesn’t think about them that much then.

4. She used to ask Caleb what was wrong, why he was coiled so tight and poisonous, screaming and yelling at everybody. That just agitated him more.  

  • It is smart not to ask Caleb what was wrong when he was yelling. This made him more angry.

5. Haven’t you noticed I’m having a bad time? he’ll ask. And then she’ll just sit and listen while he says he cannot get it out of his head, about how if he had caught that fucking sniper, that enemy sniper he’d been trying to get, that’d been following them around, terrorizing their unit, if he’d have managed to kill him like he was supposed to, then the sniper wouldn’t have gotten off the shot that killed his buddy.

  • This is something that he has thought about a lot, Caleb lost a friend from this and it haunts him a lot. He always thinks “what if” something else would have happened.

 

E03 Critical Reading – Killroy513

Section 2

Killroy, you were assigned Section 7, several times, aloud, in class, MON SEP 25.

“Now, he’s rounder, heavier, bearded, and long-haired,”

Claim- He different in his original appearance.

-Many Veterans after service do not abide by AR670-1 physical appears codes. They go back to civilian life. A veteran can be anyone around you and you would not even be able to tell.

“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.

Claim: Caleb is still as strong as he was but has changed.

-Many veterans take pride in serving in the military. Most wear hats displaying their unit, branch or time of service. The hat depicted in the reading is one that displays that the man saw combat as an infantryman. 11B MOS’s are rifleman that are in the heat of combat a good portion of the time. They are the infantry. Many things can be seen serving in the military and they are exposed to most of it. Even though someone isnt physically wounded, the thoughts of what was seen can mentally scare you for the rest of your life. This is basically what PTSD is.

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

Claim: Not the typical disabled veteran.

-Many soldiers from the Vietnam war returned disabled, some physically and some mentally. Being in the heat of combat is different for everyone. It effects people in different ways. You could be physically wounded or mentally wounded. These wounds never truly seem to heal because the scares are left as a reminder.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/ptsd-epidemic-military-vets-families/

E03 Critical Reading – PlethoraGaming

Section 12

By this point, you might be wondering, and possibly feeling guilty about wondering, why Brannan doesn’t just get divorced. And she would tell you openly that she’s thought about it. “Everyone has thought about it,” she says

  • She is assuming that we all should be thinking that they should be divorced
  • This is a common thought for anyone who has to deal with someone who has PTSD

And a lot of Kateri’s eight-year-old son now counts the exits in new spaces he enters, and points them out to his loved ones until war or fire fails to break out, and everyone is safely back home.

  • Perhaps this is  normal to find a way to get out if someone has a PTSD breakdown.

in the wake of Vietnam, 38 percent of marriages failed within the first six months of a veteran’s return stateside; 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. Army records also show that 65 percent of active-duty suicides, which now outpace combat deaths, are precipitated by broken relationships. And veterans, well, one of them dies by suicide every 80 minutes.

  • Claims: 38 percent of marriages fail within few months of their return
  • Claims: Divorce rate is 2x higher for vets with PTSD.
  • Claims: Broken relationship cause 65% of suicides while active duty
  • Claims: PTSD vets commit suicide every 80 minutes

But even ignoring that though vets make up 7 percent of the United States, they account for 20 percent of its suicides —or that children and teenagers of a parent who’s committed suicide are three times more likely to kill themselves, too—or a whole bunch of equally grim statistics, Brannan’s got her reasons for sticking it out with Caleb.

  • Claims: kids are likely to commit suicide as well if their parents have done so as well.
  • She has her reasons for staying with Caleb

“I love him,” she says.

Brannan fully supports any wife—who feels that she or her children are in danger, or in an untenable mental-health environment, or for whatever reason—who decides to leave. She’s here, through Family of a Vet, to help those people.

  • Claims: She loves him
  • They are not in a dangerous mental zone for the kids to be effected.

But she’s also there for those FOV users who, like her, have decided to stay. “I have enormous respect for Caleb,” she explains if you ask her why. “He has never stopped fighting for this family. Now, we’ve had little breaks from therapy, but he never stopped going to therapy. I love him,” she repeats, defensively at times.

  • Others have stayed with people with PTSD like her
  • She respects and loves Caleb
  • Therapy is helpful and they go to it continuously, even if they take short breaks

He is her friend, and her first love, and her rock, and her lifeline, her blossoming young daughter’s father, her ally, and her hero, she tells Caleb when he asks. Because the person who most often asks Brannan why she stays with her husband is her husband.

  • Caleb is very important to her
  • She stays with him because of who he is

Critical Reading – Jadden14

Section 5

Secondary Traumatic Stress has been documented in the spouses of veterans with PTSD from vietnam. And the spouses of Israeli veterans with PTSD, and Dutch Veterans with PTSD.

  • The author is claiming that Secondary Traumatic Stress has been recorded from previous veterans, by their wives.
  • The author then proceeds to list two more valid points: the spouses of Israeli veterans and the Dutch Veterans also reported this. The tone seems very repetitive, and is said in a way that the author finds this almost not suprising, and uses this to point out the big picture.

In one study, the incidence of secondary trauma in wives of Croatian war vets with PTSD was 30 percent. In another study there, it was 39 percent. “Trauma is really not something that  happens to an individual,” says Robert Motta, a clinical psychologist and psychology professor at Hofstra University who wrote a few of the many medical-journal articles about secondary trauma in Vietnam vets’ families. 

  • The first sentence is backing the theory in the previous sentence. The author presents a statistic to properly support his claim.
  • “In another study there it was 39 percent” – the author presents another study, one with a higher incident rate, to show the importance of this issue.
  • “Trauma is really not something that happens to an individual” – claiming that PTSD not only effects the person with the disorder, but the families as well. This quote is from a well known psychologist professor from a university, a credible source.

“Trauma is a contagious disease; it affects everyone that has close contact with a traumatized person” in some form or another, to varying degrees and for different lengths of time. “Everyone” includes children. Which is something Brannan and Caleb lose not a little sleep over, since they’ve got a six-year-old in the house.

  • “Trauma is a contagious disease; it affects everyone that has close contact with a traumatized person” – continuation of the point made, labeling trauma as a contagious disease, spreading and infecting anyone close to them.
  • “”Everyone” includes children.” – the author is trying to create a form of innocence by adding in the fact that children are being subjected to this issue. This is to bring the audience’s attention to the fact that PTSD is a very serious issue that needs to be addressed.
  • The author then lists an example of a kid who is suffering from this, losing sleep over this disorder. This continues to drive the point that everyone is affected by PTSD.

Katie Vines, the first time I meet her, is in trouble. Not that you’d know it to look at her, bounding up to the car, blondish bob flying as she sprints from her kindergarten class, nice round face like her daddy’s. No one’s the wiser until she cheerfully hands her mother a folder from the backseat she’s hopped into. It contains notes about the day from her teacher.

  • The author introduces a new character, Katie Vines, who apprears to be in trouble.
  • “not that you’d know it to look at her, bounding up to the car, blondish bob flying as she sprints from her kindergarden class” – a vivid description of the scene is provided. Katie seems to be a very hidden character, who resembles her father.
  • The mother recieves her progress in the form of notes from the teacher.

“It says here,” Brannan says, her eyes narrowing incredulously, “that you spit on somebody today.”

“Yes ma’am,” Katie admits, lowering her voice and her eyes guiltily.

“Katie Vines.” Brannan was born here in Alabama, so that’s drawled. “Wah did you do that?”

  • Katie now comes off as mean after reading the first line of dialog, as she spit on someone in school.
  • She lowers her eyes as she responds, she knows it was wrong, and admits to doing the act. If she knew it was wrong, then why did she do it?
  • The response from the mother, she is stunned. The author notes she was born in Alabama, and uses a southern accent in the mother’s response.

Her schoolmate said something mean. Maybe. Katie doesn’t sound sure, or like she remembers exactly. One thing she’s positive of: “She just made me…so. MAD.” Brannan asks Katie to name some of the alternatives. “Walk away, get the teacher, yes ma’am, no ma’am,” Katie dutifully responds to the prompts. She looks disappointed in herself. Her eyebrows are heavily creased when she shakes her head and says quietly again, “I was so mad.”

  • The audience finds out that one of katie’s schoolmates said something mean to her. But there is a certain disbelief from the author.
  • The mother then presents how the daughter should have appropriately handled the situation. The daughter shows signs of dissapointment, the mother is furious.
  • The author describes with great detail the anger within the mother.

 

E03 Critical Reading -NewEditionLover

(Section 9)

Fix your Categories, NewEditionLover

 “to help you find your way, find the information you need, and find a way not only to cope with life after combat…but to survive and thrive!”

-We can assume that Brannan is kind of nervous

-Also that life after serving is something that requires work and time

-people can assist you on the journey of regrouping

“Things were a little…off,”

-Can probably say things and life changed

-maybe a different outlook on-life being away

“What choice do I have?”

  • Brannan had no choice and is very aggressive
  • wants to help people in need
  • wants to educate and inform others on the condition