Brandon Bryant: Drones gave me PTSD
Y’all have been sending us this link all day from NBC about Brandon Bryant, the former drone operator from 2006 until 2011 when he left the service to be a media darling, apparently. He says that he killed 1,626 people from his desk chair in Nevada. I wonder if anyone, besides me, has bothered to do the math – that’s 325 people a year. Almost one a day for the entire time he was in the service, from day one at Basic Training. If it were true, and I doubt it, I’d say the drone program is doing a great job.
But we discussed Bryant in December and some of the folks who worked with him said that he was full of shit. His favorite story, he repeats in the NBC article – that he saw a child going into a goat shed just as he was blowing it up (because the US war machine hates goat sheds, for some reason) and he was wracked by the guilt of not aborting the Hellfire before impact. His mates said that there’s a delay in the video image, ya know, after going halfway around the world and all, so the missile had actually impacted on the goat shed by the time he saw the child on the video screen, if the story is even true.
His mates said that Bryant was actually a drone operator, but that none of the things he is telling the media is true. Besides, in the same character as Breanna Manning, Bryant isn’t supposed to be talking about anything he does, so it stands to reason that he’d tell the media stuff like this because none of it is true and he can’t get in trouble with his chain of command (he’s still in the IRR).
In the original post he told the Daily Mail that he “accidentally” joined the Air Force after the Army recruiter said he should join the Air Force. Yeah, I’m sure. I’m going to trust his mates on this one and file him under shitbag.
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.”
So why did he feel that he needed to tell this unknown woman that story? She probably knew he was lying, and a fan of TAH.
The cooling bodies story still fascinates me with implications of length of time you must have spent circling it…
1600 kills by the entire squadron over a 2 year period. Bryant was involved in 7 weapons releases. “I didn’t join the military to kill people.” Really? Why did you join the MILITARY during a war?
http://www.airforcetimes.com/article/20130614/NEWS04/306140020/AF-disputes-drone-operator-s-claim
You do have to wonder at people. I came in during the early 90s. Back then there are a metric TON of people who at least were honest that they came in for the money and the college payments.
Then 2001, and boom! They bowed out. I had no problem with it. But then we started seeing the people that wanted to ride in right up until the moment when they were handed orders to deploy. Then they would even go so far as to hurt themselves just to not do it.
And this weasel got a job playing war from a console in safety and wants to claim how life was “harsh” for him. He went through Basic. He went through training. He pushed the button.
And NOW he wants to cry…
Yeah he`s whining about sitting in a chair pushing buttons. I would pay to see this guy try and survive some real action, he would last 10 seconds and then he would have to be carried home to his mom. What a f***** shithead.
As I said, “Turd.”
Fall semester should be fun.
TOOL from Brooklyn, post your DD-214 Redacted PII of course or you a POSER and TROLL. Joe
148, 151
STFU, you twatwaffles.
Word has it that BB is not running his suck this year about his claims seeking “cult hero” status.
I wonder why?
#158 probably because his asinine claims are easily proven to be not only false, but laughably so.
“Watched as a body cooled to ambient temp on his FLIR monitor…”
Ninja, please….
He lost credibility with me by claiming in post 34 “Until I had a 150lbs log dropped on my head and my dreams of becoming a SERE Instructor vanished.”
I know a bit about the Air Force retraining program and the critical AFSC status of the Sensor Operator AFSC.
A dropping 150 pound log also has a bit of inertia and certainly would result in some significant trauma to either head or neck, or both. However, what is he trying to infer or suggest with this claim?
@160.
Toughness.
He is trying to relate to line vets and connect with the public that he is indeed tough.
Which we know he is not.
Word has it that Maggot Boy here is having a very difficult time.
Biggest whimp I`ve seen. He`s sitting in a comfortable chair far away, killing filthy muslims, and he wants to cry about it?? I would pay the US governemnt a monthly salary to be allowed to do that. Man, this guy would survive 10 seconds in a ground war, riddicolous. Shut up dude and go play with your barbie dolls, your`re a sad excuse for a man. This douchebag thinks he`s got PSTD from sitting in a chair, pushing buttons, it`s just annoying, he doesn`t have a clue what bad really is.
This self made Hero/Martyr makes me sick that he ever wore the uniform. Having been in the Air Force for 8 years, I know for a FACT that a very low ranking A1C in the AF would NEVER rate that kind of responsibility or direct control of these lethal multi-million dollar drones. AMTV did a broadcast that shows an image of REAL drone operators at their stations. The were Captains,commisioned officers. So, what do you REALLY want to be when you grow up?