Former drone operator says he's haunted by his part in more than 1,600 deaths

[CuteOldGuy]

Is this what we've become? Is this how the "land of the free and the home of the brave" conducts itself? Is this how we treat our military? Here's the article:

Former drone operator Brandon Bryant tells NBC's Richard Engel that he felt like he became a "heartless" "sociopath" under the drone program.

NBC | June 6, 2013

A former Air Force drone operator who says he participated in missions that killed more than 1,600 people remembers watching one of the first victims bleed to death.

Brandon Bryant says he was sitting in a chair at a Nevada Air Force base operating the camera when his team fired two missiles from their drone at three men walking down a road halfway around the world in Afghanistan. The missiles hit all three targets, and Bryant says he could see the aftermath on his computer screen – including thermal images of a growing puddle of hot blood.

“The guy that was running forward, he’s missing his right leg,” he recalled. “And I watch this guy bleed out and, I mean, the blood is hot.” As the man died his body grew cold, said Bryant, and his thermal image changed until he became the same color as the ground.

“I can see every little pixel,” said Bryant, who has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, “if I just close my eyes.”

Bryant, now 27, served as a drone operator from 2006 to 2011, at bases in Nevada, New Mexico and in Iraq, guiding unmanned drones over Iraq and Afghanistan and taking part in missions that he was told led to the deaths of an estimated 1,626 individuals.

In an interview with NBC News, he provided a rare first-person glimpse into what it’s like to control the controversial machines that have become central to the U.S. effort to kill terrorists.

He says that as an operator he was troubled by the physical disconnect between his daily routine and the violence and power of the faraway drones. “You don't feel the aircraft turn,” he said. “You don't feel the hum of the engine. You hear the hum of the computers, but that's definitely not the same thing.”

At the same time, the images coming back from the drones were very real and very graphic.

“People say that drone strikes are like mortar attacks,” Bryant said. “Well, artillery doesn't see this. Artillery doesn't see the results of their actions. It's really more intimate for us, because we see everything.”

A self-described “naïve” kid from a small Montana town, Bryant joined the Air Force in 2005 at age 19. After he scored well on tests, he said a recruiter told him that as a drone operator he would be like the smart guys in the control room in a James Bond movie, the ones who feed the agent the information he needs to complete his mission.

He trained for three and a half months before participating in his first drone mission. Bryant operated the drone’s cameras from his perch at Nellis Air Force base in Nevada as the drone rose into the air just north of Baghdad.
Bryant and the rest of his team were supposed to use their drone to provide support and protection to patrolling U.S. troops. But he recalls watching helplessly as insurgents buried an IED in a road and a U.S. Humvee drove over it.

“We had no way to warn the troops,” he said. He later learned that three soldiers died.

And once he had taken part in a kill, any remaining illusions about James Bond disappeared. “Like, this isn’t a videogame,” he said. “This isn’t some sort of fantasy. This is war. People die.”

Bryant said that most of the time he was an operator, he and his team and his commanding officers made a concerted effort to avoid civilian casualties.
But he began to wonder who the enemy targets on the ground were, and whether they really posed a threat. He’s still not certain whether the three men in Afghanistan were really Taliban insurgents or just men with guns in a country where many people carry guns. The men were five miles from American forces arguing with each other when the first missile hit them.
“They (didn’t) seem to be in a hurry,” he recalled. “They (were) just doing their thing. ... They were probably carrying rifles, but I wasn't convinced that they were bad guys.“ But as a 21-year-old airman, said Bryant, he didn’t think he had the standing to ask questions.

He also remembers being convinced that he had seen a child scurry onto his screen during one mission just before a missile struck, despite assurances from others that the figure he’d seen was really a dog.

After participating in hundreds of missions over the years, Bryant said he “lost respect for life” and began to feel like a sociopath. He remembers coming into work in 2010, seeing pictures of targeted individuals on the wall – Anwar al-Awlaki and other al Qaeda and Taliban leaders -- and musing, “Which one of these f_____s is going to die today?”

In 2011, as Bryant’s career as a drone operator neared its end, he said his commander presented him with what amounted to a scorecard. It showed that he had participated in missions that contributed to the deaths of 1,626 people.

“I would’ve been happy if they never even showed me the piece of paper,” he said. “I've seen American soldiers die, innocent people die, and insurgents die. And it's not pretty. It's not something that I want to have -- this diploma.”

Now that he’s out of the Air Force and back home in Montana, Bryant said he doesn’t want to think about how many people on that list might’ve been innocent: “It’s too heartbreaking.”

The Veterans Administration diagnosed him with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, for which he has undergone counseling. He says his PTSD has manifested itself as anger, sleeplessness and blackout drinking.

“I don’t feel like I can really interact with that average, everyday person,” he said. “I get too frustrated, because A) they don't realize what's going on over there. And B) they don't care.”

He’s also reluctant to tell the people in his personal life what he was doing for five years. When he told a woman he was seeing that he’d been a drone operator, and contributed to the deaths of a large number of people, she cut him off. “She looked at me like I was a monster,” he said. “And she never wanted to touch me again.”

They don't care. How remarkably sad a statement that is.

May you find the peace you so desperately need, Brandon.

http://www.freedominfonetwork.org/pr...EMJEo.facebook

[Guest040616]

Drones? If used properly, it is my personal belief that Drones are a good thing. Especially as it relates to targeting known Terrorists, intent upon killing innocent American citizens. In other words, send in the Drones, we can dig up their remains when the dust clears!

Next!

[CJ7]

Go drones GO

save the lives of as many American soldiers as you possibly can





HUNT Motherfucker !

[JD Barleycorn]

I have no complaint about drone warfare, if it is used with the proper safeguards and authority (presidential authority only) but the toll it takes on the operators has to be dealt with. I have read about snipers who can many times see the face of the person they are about to kill. I also recall the words of L. Colonel Paul Tibbets who piloted the Enola Gay that day over Hiroshima. He expressed the idea that on many other raids he could always tell himself that his bombs hit the factory and nothing around it, his bombs didn't fall on civilians, that his bombs were always on target and never hit the innocent. He knew that on that day he, and he alone, would be responsible for the death of an estimated 100,000 people making him one of history's greatest killers.

[CuteOldGuy]

“We don't expect the President to give the American people every detail about a classified surveillance program. But we do expect him to place such a program within the rule of law, and to allow members of the other two coequal branches of government - Congress and the Judiciary - to have the ability to monitor and oversee such a program. Our Constitution and our right to privacy as Americans require as much.” - Senator Obama 2006

[Guest040616]

Originally Posted by JD Barleycorn

He knew that on that day he, and he alone, would be responsible for the death of an estimated 100,000 people making him one of history's greatest killers.

I would never refer to Col. Tibbets as "one of history's greatest killers." Never in a million years!

I have always felt that he was an American Patriot who actually saved thousands upon thousands of American lives!

[CJ7]

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

“We don't expect the President to give the American people every detail about a classified surveillance program. But we do expect him to place such a program within the rule of law, and to allow members of the other two coequal branches of government - Congress and the Judiciary - to have the ability to monitor and oversee such a program. Our Constitution and our right to privacy as Americans require as much.” - Senator Obama 2006

the rule of law during a war..... riiiiiiiiiiiiiight

[JD Barleycorn]

Actually I'm paraphrasing what Tibbets wrote. He called himself a killer but not a murderer.

[JD Barleycorn]

Have you ever read Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card? A young man is a tactical genius. He trains everyday in the virtual world winning battles. He sacrifices his ships but always wins. He starts at about 11 years old and by the time he is 18 years old he has won hundreds of battles, slaughtered millions of opponents, and sacrificed millions of his own people. He then finds out that it was not a game but it was all real. He is running the defense of the earth and the attacks on our enemies. He killed millions but was not told because it was worried that he could not bear up to the guilt.

[Guest040616]

Originally Posted by JD Barleycorn

Actually I'm paraphrasing what Tibbets wrote. He called himself a killer but not a murderer.

I stand by my previous statement, which was:

Originally Posted by bigtex

I would never refer to Col. Tibbets as "one of history's greatest killers." Never in a million years!

I have always felt that he was an American Patriot who actually saved thousands upon thousands of American lives!

[i'va biggen]

Not much diff between a drone operator and a pilot sitting in the cockpit of a bomber or jet required to bomb a target. .It is something you live with , alcohol helps.

[Old Dingus]

The statistics from the Battle of Okinawa show beyond any question that the Japanese fought more fiercely (and to the death) the closer Allied forces got to the mainland of Japan. An invasion would have cost hundreds of thousands if not a million lives. Remember that the Japanese would have lost many more.

The BOMB prevented an incredibly bloody invasion and ended the war.

Remeber too that Japan had been told (twice) to surrender or an unprecedented weapon would be used.

DO NOT DARE TO ATTEMPT TO BLEMISH THE NAMES OF AMERICAN HEROES!

Old Dingus

[Uncle Han]

Originally Posted by i'va biggen

.It is something you live with , alcohol helps.

Thanks for explaining how you deal with your down syndrome.

[timpage]

I wonder if he would have been more or less "haunted" if he had fired a round into that Afghan's head with an M4 assault rifle from 20 yards and watched him bleed out up close, personal and in color? War traumatizes many, if not most, of its participants. This guy wouldn't be human if he wasn't having some feelings about participating in these activities. I don't get the point of you posting it up COG....is it supposed to be somehow supportive of your bizarre drone aversion?

It's a war motherfucker. People get killed, shit gets broken and the participants feel bad about it if they have regular human feelings. You do what's necessary to protect you and yours.

[jbravo_123]

Originally Posted by JD Barleycorn

I have no complaint about drone warfare, if it is used with the proper safeguards and authority (presidential authority only) but the toll it takes on the operators has to be dealt with. I have read about snipers who can many times see the face of the person they are about to kill. I also recall the words of L. Colonel Paul Tibbets who piloted the Enola Gay that day over Hiroshima. He expressed the idea that on many other raids he could always tell himself that his bombs hit the factory and nothing around it, his bombs didn't fall on civilians, that his bombs were always on target and never hit the innocent. He knew that on that day he, and he alone, would be responsible for the death of an estimated 100,000 people making him one of history's greatest killers.

To me, drones are just like any other tool we have in our arsenal. It's about the operator and how it's used that matters.

I agree that drone operators need the mental care that soldiers in the field get even though they're technically not out there and directly face to face with the results of what they do.

Originally Posted by JD Barleycorn

Have you ever read Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card? A young man is a tactical genius. He trains everyday in the virtual world winning battles. He sacrifices his ships but always wins. He starts at about 11 years old and by the time he is 18 years old he has won hundreds of battles, slaughtered millions of opponents, and sacrificed millions of his own people. He then finds out that it was not a game but it was all real. He is running the defense of the earth and the attacks on our enemies. He killed millions but was not told because it was worried that he could not bear up to the guilt.

Great book - one of my all time favorites. Ender is actually around 8 at the time he commits the Xenocide, but yeah the point is that he is used and commits the ultimate horrifying act of war (xenocide - he kills an entire alien race, so really billions/trillions of them spread across multiple star systems) but can only do so because he doesn't know that what he's doing is real at the time he's doing it.