Drone operators need love, too
Pinto Nag sends us a link from MSN which tells us how “Emotional toll taxes military drone operators too”.
While drone operators are not physically in harm’s way — they do their work at computer terminals in darkened rooms far from the actual battlefield — growing research is finding they too can suffer some of the emotional strains of war that ground forces face.
“It can be as impactful for these guys as someone in a foxhole,” said Air Force spokesman Tom Kimball.
Well, then their supervisors should stop shooting at them while they’re working. I see no need for that.
And here comes our old friend Brandon Bryant with his bullshit stories;
Brandon Bryant manned the cameras for pilots at Air Force bases in Nevada and New Mexico for about five years.
He said he still suffers from insomnia, depression and nightmares three years after he participated in his last mission. He witnessed the direct killing of 13 people, and his squadron was credited with killing 1,626 enemies.
“I would go to sleep and dream about work, the mission, and continuously see the people I’d watched on the screen earlier now in my own head repeatedly being killed,” he said, adding that he felt alone and that no one wanted to talk about it.
Bryant, 28, said he has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder by the Veterans Administration.
He said the military’s drone community has shunned him for speaking out.
No, the drone community has shunned him because he’s completely full of shit. We talked to some of them a few years ago. And, oh yeah, Bryant is a fan of Brad Manning and Edward Snowden.
I respect and I’m grateful for the jobs that drone operators are doing, but they probably need to shut this fool off or no one is ever going to take them seriously.
Category: Air Force
Aside from the one guy you called out, I think we need to play a little devil’s advocate.
Drone operators watch people die every time they go on an attack run. They enter the AO with their drone, strike a target, then look to assess damage. They can see when people die, who died, and how they died. Sometimes, the ordinance kills people they don’t want to hit, like women and children, which would be even worse for someone to witness.
It would bother me, so I think it’s fair to say it’ll bother them, too.
I’m not saying they have more trauma than infantry or any front line MOS, but I think we shouldn’t ignore that anyone who has a role that involves the use of lethal force has a claim to say that they can be traumatized.
(Just as a post note, I do think you guys understand this already, but I just want to say it all the same)
Kinda hard for me to have much sympathy for the “combat stress” felt by someone who operates equipment via remote-control from a safe, air-conditioned office hundreds of miles away – or on a different continent – from where the bullets are flying, Farflung Wanderer. Especially when they’re (1) in the military and willingly signed up to do that, and (2) later lie about what they did.
Some things just ain’t the same on TV as they are in person. Watching an explosion from a safe distance is a far cry from being close enough to feel it – and in some cases, to see and smell the results.
No doubt Hondo, definitely not in the same league, though I can see some of what he’s referring to.
Eric: no doubt those operating RPVs feel stress at times. So do mechanics in the motorpool at Fort Bragg before an upcoming inspection.
Job-related stress? Yes. But IMO, in neither case is it “combat stress”. They were never personally at risk of getting killed by enemy action. You can’t get shot (or blown up) via a TV feed.
The risk – even a small one – of violent death at the hands of the enemy is the distinction. Even those at the biggest, safest FOB in Iraq or Afghanistan had to deal with that threat to some degree (IDF and small-arms rounds don’t give a damn whether you’re inside or outside the wire if you’re at that proverbial “right place at the wrong time”). Ditto pilots flying CAS missions, even when well out of small-arms range; the MANPADS threat, though small, was not zero.
People in an air-conditioned office halfway around the world? Um, no. IMO, that’s simply not the same. Not even close.
Watching it on TV ain’t the same as being there.
“Watching it on TV” is a little disengenious. So is comparing their stresses to those of a motor pool mechanic. There is a joystick rigged up to that TV, and most of the time when a drone operator pushes that button, he is taking life. Many drone operators have killed more people than the guys kicking in doors and dodging actual fire, and while drone operators do not deal with that aspect of combat stress they do deal with the part that about killing people.
Drone Operators are more probably more likely to kill civilians than anyone else. Civilian deaths and the potential for causing them are things that tend to bother a person’s conscience. Having issues related to that is not the same thing about worrying about a TA-50 layout.
I see this as being similar to fixed and rotary wing attack pilots. Yes, they may be at a computer, but unlike a video game the little moving pixels are real people.
One of the things that makes PTS so hard is the your mind not adjusting to what you witnessed. This comes from a traumatic event, or more accurately repeated stressful traumatic events.
Age, training, and distances from the event all mitigate the effect and development of PTS.
Watching figures (IR images) disappear in a flash of light on a TV screen is not much different than watching Jason taking an axe to the horny teen camper’s head. IF they are getting PTS from viewing this on the screen, how much worse is it for them when they see a splatter movie, or that uncensored stuff on youtube?
I’ve been told by people that they are “disabled” (and are receiving Social Security benefits) because of PTS they got from seeing a car accident from across the street. That same accident my partner (EMT) crawled into the car over the dead passenger to try to keep another passenger alive till the Fire could cut them out. He has PTS. (not just from that event, but far to many like it.)
The TV screen is a major mitigation to PTS, I’m not saying it could not happen, but it seems very unlikely if the Drone Operator watches any prime time TV or scary movies. There is a big disconnect between being there and seeing it second hand.
I disagree.
In a movie or TV show, you know that everyone there is fake. They’re actors, acting, and when the set is done, they get up and walk off for coffee.
Drone operators, even though they’re watching a screen, are ending real lives. They’re killing, and they watch the final moments as the person dies.
I’m not saying it’s parallel to the trauma infantry gets, but even a drone operator sees stuff that would bother any sane person.
Imagine being on their place. There’s no adrenaline, no “kill or be killed” instinct. They have been commanded to kill solely because they have been told to engage, but at that moment they cannot shield the act of taking a life behind self defense or defending someone else.
I argue that makes it its own special kind of hell, because you know that you pulled the trigger on someone miles away who couldn’t have harmed you the moment you took their life.
Brandon Bryant will say anything…
Hm. Another Brandon Bryant sighting, eh? Poor widdle Brandon – still “stressed out” from his “horrible wartime experiences.”
(yawn)
I think I figured out Bryant’s favorite song, though.
Please tell me you stole this from the Duffel Blog?
Sadly, that’s not from the Duffle Blog. The above MSN link doesn’t work for me, but I’m pretty sure this is the story:
http://www.sfgate.com/news/us/article/Emotional-toll-taxes-military-drone-operators-too-5787192.php
I think there’s definitely an expectation that you’ll become affected by seeing people die on those cameras. Granted, Brandon just gives them types a bad name by maximum exaggeration.
I had a Lieutenant in my last unit who hadn’t deployed before and when the rest of us would have conversations about stuff downrange, he’d try to throw in the “yeah I remember seeing a couple of scenes like that on the monitors in the SCIF while I was at Ft Lewis….”
It was an effort for him to try to fit in with the rest of us. I would say that there’s probably a high stress level that goes along with not being able to “talk” it out as easily with others. How many drone operators are there in the military who don’t get deployed?
In my first unit, I got sent as an augment to Bosnia with another unit and was the only one from my unit to do so. When I came back I was angry and irritated for 6 months because I had no one to talk to who could even conceptualize what it was like there. All everyone wanted to hear was war stories and “did you kill anyone?” kind of BS. Very frustrating.
I’m sure its going to be tough for some of these guys to put rounds on a target and see the results. Hopefully someone muzzles or sticks a big dick in Brandon’s mouth so he’ll shut up.
Given Brandy-Boi’s choice of “heroes,” I think it’s safe to say he would prefer the latter option.
I’d kill for a drone.
Ok, maybe a little extreme. But, I would like one of the smaller ones for my personal use. Especially, when a group of us get together to go Jeepin’.
Jeeping? Is that redneck, hillbilly, yahoo, or what?
Phuque Psul….
I had this conversation last week with a college student.
I am not talking about Bryant, This is about operators as a group.
I am sure that their job can be extremely stressful. Its easy to say that they are not subject to the same rigors of ground troops but it would be ignorant to say that they do not have stress and may suffer.
We often see this group compared to ground troops, when in reality the job the do is that of a pilot with out the risk to their own life.
I would love to see information on the number of pilots who have PTSD vs drone operators. I think then there would be a grounds for comparison.
I would also add that in recent times technology has gotten so significantly improved that you can watch real-time what happens from rounds launched so far away you can’t feel the splash.
40 years ago it might just be “we shot and hit 20 enemy” whereas now they are watching that round touchdown and seeing body parts thrown in multiple directions.
At the end of the day, every time we were on the ground and I could hear a drone above, or I saw a “show of force” jet fly so low over us that I could see the pilot, it was an awesome and more secure feeling. (Though I’m pissed that I never once got a goddamn picture in time for a show of force fly over so close)
While, I can see your point, the major difference is dimensional. For a pilot, it’s 3-D. For a drone operator, it’s always going to be 2-D.
Yes, they are flying the missions and bombing the bad guys, but in reality, it’s like a big video game. They just can’t turn it off until “mission over”. I have no doubts it can be stressful. And the adrenalin is flowing. At that moment. But, there is no way in hell, it can be compared to a ground troop. Out on patrol and living it daily.
And I’m retired AF, so don’t think I’m cutting the “scope dopes” any slack.
I have read that during WWII, infantry and armor guys in Europe felt that bomber crews claiming combat stress were just being pussies. After all, how bad could it be, eating hot food for breakfast and dinner, sleeping in your own bunk every night? Even Dick Winters (of “Band of Brothers” fame) admitted in his own memoir that he was appalled one night at a USO hotel in London, when his assigned roommate, a B-24 pilot, had violent nightmares throughout the night. It wasn’t until after the war, when it became common knowledge that a man in a B-17 or B-24 was statistically just as likely to lose life or limb as a rifleman in a frontline foxhole, and that the 8th Air Force suffered more casualties than the entire Marine Corps, that this perception was changed. I bring this up because I think somebody will inevitably try to draw a comparison, and that such a comparison is bullshit. The reason why? Words like “casualties” and “loss of life or limb.” Heavy bomber crews worked in an environment where they could be killed or crippled before they ever even saw the enemy. Death could come in hundreds of ways, from flak, from fighters, from colliding with another plane in bad visibility, from a malfunctioning oxygen feed in an unpressurized aircraft at high altitude, or from it being 50 degrees below zero at operational altitude. Men saw their friends blown apart, or freezing to death due to blood loss, and sometimes had to drop badly-wounded men over enemy territory in the hope that the Germans would get them medical sooner. This was done with the knowledge that even as late as fall of 1944, an airman was said to have no more than a 50/50 chance of surviving his tour. Drone operators face no danger except eyestrain and carpal tunnel. They do an important job, and it’s wrong to say that they won’t experience some kind of emotional stress from it. But their job is basically a video game, at least from their perspective. No matter how dedicated they are (and… Read more »
I have friends who work with UAVs and the only thing I hear them complain about is hot bunking when they are on duty.
I don’t personally know any drone operators but I’m not buying into the combat stress deal for them either. Most of these guys grew up playing video games that were far more graphic than anything they are seeing on their monitors and to me the big distinction is lack of personal safety issues.
No doubt some will have issues with the thought of what they are doing to other human beings but in the end they go home and have a beer and sleep in the comfort of their own bed.
It sounds heartless but some of the reason the VA is so backlogged is we have people like this claiming PTSD or other combat injuries that are hard to prove or disprove and it clogs the system for everyone. The last time I was at the VA hospital in Columbia for an MRI just listening to some of the BS in the waiting room made me want to punch someone and it was clear a significant number of people were just looking to get on the payday bandwagon. They don’t even try to hide it and they know its not PC to challenge people on their claims so if they are denied they just need to keep pushing it through their Senators and eventually the VA will cave.
This guy is likely doing the same thing and I bet he is getting a hefty check from the VA but who is going to challenge this delicate flowers claims? That wouldn’t be supporting the troops now would it?
I actually have quite a bit of sympathy for a lot of the folk in the VA, they can’t win for losing.
Number one son did two tours in Iraq (artillery MOS) doing mounted and dismounted patrols (eastern Diyala) then one tour in AFG flying armed UAVs. In Iraq, they were shot at pretty regularly – sometimes by US forces (4ID I think). In AFG, they took IDF pretty regularly. I don’t know what else I can say.
I am given to understand that the Air Force is going to be requiring their drone operators to switch from the sage green or desert tan flight suits over to the older style international orange ones.
The main reason for the switch is that the orange flight suits better hide the Doritos stains.
“On Killing” by LtCol Dave Grossman is a good book. (Just to add…)
Grossman is a good dude. Met him. Very intense.
I would also add MEDITATIONS ON VIOLENCE by Rory Miller.
It seems to me these are two different things we lump under the same very broad category.
On the one hand there’s the stress associated with ground combat. At the risk of talking out of my ass due to lack of personal experience, I’m guessing the physical, emotional and mental stresses effect almost the entirety of soldiers in these situations, and it ties in to basic human instincts.
On the other, there’s sure to be some kind of stress associated with the reality of being able to kill people who don’t know you’re there, are no direct threat to you at that particular point in time, and without the adrenaline and fight-or-flight response humans have had for ages. It’s certainly not as widespread as the more fundamental stresses of combat, and maybe has some correlation to everything from empathy to belief in the mission, I’m not sure. But I can certainly see it exists for some people.
The problem is in comparing these two vastly different things and lumping them under the umbrella term of ‘stress’, or even ‘combat stress’. The latter doesn’t compare to the former in most ways, but it can still be substantial for some people.
LC: I think you make a very good point reference the one-size fits all categorization of service connected stress. One of the other problems is who becomes the “spokesman.” When a guy like Bryant (who is full of shit) puts himself out there and the media latches onto him, it is a disservice to those who may actually be suffering.
Your “On the other hand” paragraph is a real good explanation of the stress factors involved. Add to that the concern of determining if targets are really “Bad Guys” (IED emplacers) or if your boss is trigger happy…looking for a kill and choosing to imagine that shovel in the guys hand….and you have a real conceptual conundrum once your war is over. Also… who Actually does the killing? Is it the button pusher uav operator? He’s just flying where he’s told. Is it the Intel weenie directing the UAVS where to go and what to look for? Or is it the trigger-happy CHOPS directing the sensor-to-shooter activity? Dude on the road never heard or saw anything overhead. Innocent or guilty, being in the wrong place at the wrong time got him killed. BUT by whom? Who is the killer?
If someone claims PTSD and is less than 100% disabled by it, I am in favor of offering him cost-free counseling–and that’s all. Without the cash cow, the numbers of claims will drop tremendously and overnight. Now, if someone is 100% disabled by PTSD–and it is traceable to ACTUAL combat or war wound (in the case of IED, mortar, or rocket), it would be unconscionable not to fully (100%) compensate him as he receives ongoing counseling and treatment. As for buddy boy here, I’d just tell him to put a strangle hold on his joy stick and get the hell out.
My job in A-Stan was Convoy Security, we guarded convoys en route via Gun Trucks. When we got shot at, we shot back, and we were at risk of getting killed or wounded. The chopper and plane crews were at risk of taking fire with the same risks, but when a Drone Pilot’s bird gets shot at or down, he or she can just go use the bathroom and grab a fresh cup of coffee afterward, and will sleep at home that night. Sorry, but I don’t have much empathy with them, having to take lives ain’t much fun, it’s stressful, but they didn’t even get a scratch when one of their birds went down!
Hey guys
Long time lurker here, I am a UAV operator* I just want to point out that most UAV guys do not work from Nevada. I’ve spent most of the last 6 years in the sandbox or the rock pile, mostly at smaller FOBs and COBs,because that’s where the work is. My Air conditioned office** is usually at the edge of or even outside the perimeter because thats whee we need to be to operate.
I’m not going to make myself out as some kind of door kicking, pipe hitter. but it ain’t cocktails at the club either.
*yes, we are called operators, if they called us pilots they’d to pay us more.
** it is, but that’s mostly for the computers not for me
This all depends on your platform. You ain’t driving a Global Hawk or Predator like you are a CAS guy. No one who knows anything about it would pretend that’s the case. TF ODIN guy here, and 1-4 IN and myriad other IN CO’s as well.
Thanks for replying. I too worked with Hunter UAVs in Iraq 2006-2007. Please email back so we can talk more. For the operators, it’s difficult because ops were supposed to secret…so I am only now starting to talk through things that I did and saw while overseas.
Thanks.
I won’t say that it isn’t possible for a UAV driver to develop PTSD. He is, after all, piloting a machine that he can use to kill people, and that same machine can kill the innocent. And it can be a stressful job with literally hours of sitting in front of a screen where nothing happens while you remain on edge waiting for something to happen. And when those things happen they happen fast, and without warning.
So, yes, the job isn’t easy. I have total respect for those guys.
This guy Bryant is not one of them.
I have been in the unique position to see and experience both sides of this debate, as someone who has been in both uav units and line infantry units and I can say on a very intimate level of knowledge that these to things are not similar. Ask a NASCAR fan who watched a race on tv and at a track if the race was the same. Real danger is a game changer. I understand the uav guys want to feel cool or whatever but a cib is not a cab. Real danger to you, loss of life and limb is something these drone guys don’t face. Ya’ll may remember my last two deployments, our drone guys were flying out of Baghram, but they never left the wire and they were always trying to get the next piece of flair for their uniforms. Yes they contribute, but no, they aren’t in the same league as guys who are getting shot at and blown up. Don’t pretend to be something you are not. Be proud of the part you played, but trying to be hooah comes across as petty and jealous.
Brandon Bryant is a laughing stock.
Word has it that he has some fooled but real Infantrymen know who he is and where he is.
PTSD and Happy Hour! What a combination.
Turd.
Not too long ago I read on some mil-blog somewhere that everyone who serves is equally honorable, equally meritorious, and all different that those lowly souls who have not served. And now I see you all going after the drone drivers as less worthy. I guess I must have read that somewhere else.
While you all carry on, the logistics, payroll, and ammo guys are trying to figure out this whole hot- bunking thing. And the drone guys aren’t watching those three assholes planting an IED in the road three miles in front of you – no bug splat. Good luck with that.
Your post is confusing but I will fill in the blanks.
While drone operators are a integral part of the battlefield, they are not on the line.
After patrolling, I liked to sleep. And sleep. After all of the damn BUBS, CUBS and other associated meetings. Until the next day. And then start over again.
No happy hour here.
Give me a break.
And PTSD compared to a line until bowing, flexing, engaging and bumping the enemy everyday?
Really?
If I am off base, let me know.
And Brandon Bryant still is and always will be a self-righteous turd.