First trigger-pulling drone operator speaks out
ABC News talks to the first drone operator to fire a Hellfire missile from a Predator platform, you know, since it’s becoming popular to talk about your secret operations these days. He says that he once found Osama bin Laden a year before the 9-11 attacks made bin Laden a priority target. However the drones didn’t carry missiles in those days. A year later, he had his opportunity to shoot at a different target;
“We had spent many hours preparing for this moment, but a palpable sense of apprehension hung in the air,” Swanson writes. “The Predator system was by no means mature; it was little more than a prototype… I pulled the trigger, called ‘weapons away’ and flew straight and level.
“The time until impact seemed an eternity; then, in an instant, the screen was filled by a bright white bloom of light. As the bloom dissipated, we saw an object move quickly across the screen, flailing like a ragdoll tossed in the air. It was a body, twisting and contorting and glowing from the heat of the blast. Nearly a decade-and-a-half after that first-ever intercontinental air strike by UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle], that fleeting image remains burned in to my memory,” he writes.
Scott Swanson who says that he “cringes” every time he hears the word “Chairforce” says that he’s coming out now to counter the myth that operating a drone isn’t like a video game;
“[T]o all of us who fly or have flown armed UAVs, one thing is as clear as the sharpest video image: war is not now, nor will it ever be, a game,” he writes.
Yeah, well, maybe they should stand during their entire shift. Unless the Duffel Blog is lying, they’ve already done away with chairs.
“This isn’t about posture. The Colonel’s just plain sick and tired of this ‘Chair Force’ moniker. Being around all these CENTCOM doorkickers all day long means we have to put up with all their crap.”
Richoux denied that this had anything to do with the “unofficial Air Force nickname.”
“Our Airmen, whether they are flying jets, piloting UAV’s, or gathering intelligence, are always sitting down. This stuff has got to be bad for their back.”
Some airmen at the command were angered.
“How the hell am I supposed to work under these conditions?” said Senior Airman Gregory Jones. “So we use chairs. Big deal. It doesn’t mean we all should be at standing desks like a bunch of idiot hippies.”
Category: Air Force
Let me know when he shows up at the VA for his Free Pot.
Best I can tell there is maybe one teeny, tiny little difference between waging “remote warfare” by flying a RPV and combat. When flying a RPV from a safe rear area, you’re not generally in any danger of getting your ass shot off or blown up. But other than that, yeah – I guess it’s pretty much like being there and getting shot at yourself.
(I trust the sarcasm above is obvious.)
I thought the weapon systems on Predators and other drones were controlled by somebody else besides the pilot. What’s the deal with the “pulled the trigger, then flew straight & level claim?
Maybe he thinks that the weapons system on a Predator is like th3 Sparrow missiles that were hung on F-4 Phantoms back in Nam, that were radar guided? He thinks they have to fly straight and level until detonation?
Maybe he’s just plain ol’ lying in his teeth.
This is simple ignorance, and here’s the way to fix it: Any potential drone pilots should have to serve a tour with a combat unit in the sandbox. Then they can come back (if they survive) and fly their drones. I’m sure the differences will be obvious at that point.
The snowflakes need to get over themselves. Life’s a bitch and then you die. Next problem.
Pinto:
Number one son (US Army SSG) did two combat tours in Iraq. His MOS was artillery. No arty work so he did walking and mounted patrols from a FOB (first tour) and a COP (second tour). On the second tour he also did intel and commo work. He has a CAB and an ARCOM. He returned to the states, took UAV training then went to Afghanistan for a year and flew armed UAVs in support of ground troops. The FOB took IDF several times a week. The IDF was punching holes in the structures where they slept so he and his guys were moved to the other end of the structure.
He left the Army in April.
I understand your position but it chaps my ass because not everyone flying armed UAVs is in the States. I think that getting shot at several times a week is close enough.
You may want to re-read what I wrote, Richard. The point was that the men in the patrols know the value of the drones in a way that a man who has never been on patrol does not. Your son sounds exactly like the type of person I was thinking about when I wrote my comment. I wasn’t saying that drone pilots aren’t in danger if they’re posted in the ME; I was saying that experiencing what the combat troops do would give them a balanced perspective on the carnage they inflict with their drones.
If your son, a SSG, told you the UAVs he was flying were armed then he lied to you. The UAVs that enlisted men and women fly in the Army ARE NOT armed with anything other than sensors and a camera. The biggest thing enlisted folks in the Army are allowed to fly are Shadows. They are so small that they couldn’t even launch off of the rail with a single Hellfire missile. I’ll guarantee he did his training here at Fort Huachuca.
I commend your son for his service and as a fellow combat veteran (OEF), tell him I said thanks for what he does (Shadow UAVs made the bad guys go hide for a bit giving us a nice break in the firefight) but don’t let him get caught telling people he was an armed drone pilot or he will end up on this website when someone like me that knows better catches him in his lie.
In my specialty in the Navy, cryptology, there are a lot of “sand crabs.” Important jobs, but I really got tired of their whining that the “autodog” ice cream machine wasn’t working or some such silliness when I was finishing off a 20 hour flight day.
I always believed that every Sailor needed to do at least a year in the Fleet in First Division chipping paint and hauling line. It makes a Sailor more grateful once they’re released.
Speaking of pilots, as I was retiring and getting ready to go into the Honolulu Police Academy, a CDR on the PACFLT staff chatted with me about joining Baltimore PD. He was a helo pilot and BPD definitely wanted him, but he was being told that before he could fly the helo he had to spend a year on the street as a beat cop. He wasn’t sure he liked that. Always wondered if he went through with it.
Call me the next time. I will be glad to be the one that pulls the trigger. Hell, set up a remote link and I will do it for nothing! It would be no different than spraying the bugs in my yard. I also promise not to file a a PTSD claim and not to ask my neighbors for a hit off of their bong.
Typical REMF.
Whining, butthurt, lower lip pouters – man, I thought it was HARD, sitting at a Movieola all day long, watching film run through the viewscreen. I’m tellin’ you, I had a HARD job.
Seriously, the (lack of) creative imagination that runs through wee Scott’s story and his angst over doing his job (which I assume he was paid to do) are just enough to make me giggle and snort.
What a big baby.
Ok. Lemme see if I got this straight.
1. He did his bit in the war and never left the office. Not exactly a unique thing, in general but doing so as a “trigger puller” specifically… yeah.
2. He went to the war zone but never left CONUS. That’s unique.
3. He did his “trigger pull” from a chair in a building in CONUS.
How’s that not Chairforce? Why’s he got his panties all bunched? I wouldn’t mind a job like that at all. Kill the enemy and never miss the comforts of home while doing so? Doods. We’ve finally made the “have your cake and eat it too” a war time reality!
Personally, I think the guy’s just all bent out of shape after realizing that he’s not now, nor will he ever be, a US Marine. That’s gotta hurt a man’s self image.
@ GRIMMY, Et Alii:
“Personally, I think the guy’s just all bent out of shape after realizing that he’s not now, nor will he ever be, a US Marine. That’s gotta hurt a man’s self image.”
_________________________
Been there. Done that.
Have you ever seen the movie, “BABY BLUE MARINE”, starring Jan-Michael Vincent?
And, of course, we can’t forget the story of good ol’ Audie Murphy, who was turned down by both the Marines AND the Paratroopers!
After being turned down by the United States Marine Corps for the third time, I volunteered to be drafted into the United States Army, and would eventually serve with the “Screaming Eagles” of the 101st Airborne Division in the old Republic of Viet Nam.
Then, a few years ago, I purchased the entire set of the TIME-LIFE set of books, “THE VIETNAM EXPERIENCE”.
In the volume, “A WAR REMEMBERED”, on Page 90, Richard W. Grefath in Reno, Nevada recalls his reaction to learning that he was being assigned to the 101st Airborne Division.
“I was just devastated – – – terrified.
It was bad enough being in Vietnam, but to be in the ‘Marines of the Army’.”
When I read that, I busted out laughing!
I had been a “Marine” in the Army!
LOL.
Well done, sir.
My brother told me that when he went to Whitehall Street in NYC to be inducted, they lined them up and had them count off by threes. Then they had all the #3’s step forward.
“I have the pleasure of informing you that you have just been drafted into the US Marine Corps.”
My brother said there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. He considered himself lucky not to be a #3.
It’s “burned in to his memory”…. Yeah, I forgot – “seared” was already taken.
I’m guessing that “broiled” and “grilled” will shortly follow…..
/mmmmm….steak.
I have a few things “burned” into my memory. But they’re things I actually witnessed firsthand. Stuff I saw on a screen? Not so much. Except “Two Girls, One Cup.” I’m never gonna be able to unsee that shit!
I too had a tall Arab looking guy in my sights, and to this day I am convinced it was UBL. I was all set to pull the trigger and unleash all hell on his goat smelling ass, when I got a PM from a fucking server admin telling me that my subscription to the game server was going to be cut off because my Mom’s credit card had expired. Like, what an asshole. So then I’m yelling at my Mom to give me her new credit card number and she puts all the bullshit conditions on it , like “clean your room”, “feed the dog”, etc. and I just said fuck it, I don’t need this shit.
She caved and gave me the number a few days later, but it was too fucking late. I still have nightmares about it.
GD,sounds like you have already met all the pre-qualifications to be a RPV operator in the AF. With that real life experience/background you should expect to go on active duty as a Senior Airman as a bare minimum. And the nightmares will fade away,I promise. Smile.
I think that’s what DARPA should do. Modify the real-time video image to make it appear like it is a game. Put guys in the chair and say, “Hey bro, play some Call of Duty for a few hours. Here’s some weed too.” They’d blow shit up, kill civilians, and wreak general havoc… then go home, sleep like a baby, and never catch the PTSD.
As for me, I would have to brush up on my dope smoking before I could seriously consider it.
On a serious note in regards to a real DARPA project… google up a podcast called “9 Second Nirvana”.
That’s what they did in the movie “Toys” with Robin Williams.
Now THAT is fucking funny!
Hey, I’m here to help!
My bad, wrong comment.
I don’t get it. You did the job you were trained to do and you were lucky that it was a job with fewer risks than most pilots. Hell that sounds like something to brag about to me. If you have it good then just say you have it good and stop being a bitch drama queen. That’s one of the things I liked about the Air Force; I didn’t have to do the same things as the Army, Marines, or Navy. That’s why I chose the AF for my second enlistment. What a dipshit.
Fewer risks? The only risk he faced was the off chance of Vlad throwing an ICBM at his base.
I don’t get it… If one joins the infantry (among others), they know that it is in their job description to kill people and break stuff. If you accept a job operating armed drones, you are probably aware that your job is to kill people and break stuff. The only difference between the two is that the infantryman risks life and limb. Drone guy leaves the… ahem, chair… and goes home to sleep in his own bed.
After happy hour, of course.
NO SHIT, the Sparkle Ponies don’t even have General Order 1A!
I got the PTSD from watching all those drone strikes on the Youtubes. When do I get my free pot and bong from the VA?
/sarc
Don’t laugh.
The headshrinkers are already starting to float the idea that it’s possible to catch the PTSD from watching tv shows.
I got the PTS bad from one episode of Honey Booboo.
That’s qualifies as an intentional self-inflicted wound, Sapper3307. You just copped to a violation of the UCMJ. (smile)
The horror…..
😉
Any bets as to when the first medal for “valor” is awarded to either a drone operator or cyber “warrior?”
Maybe a purple heart for carpel tunnel syndrome.
Geez, I get the PTSD just from reading the BS you whiny dorkwads post in these comments… especially when you start moaning about going commando in the bush with your cheese hanging out in the wind.
That would give anyone the PTSD.
“Nearly a decade-and-a-half after…that fleeting image remains burned in to my memory,” he writes.”
VA disability for PSTD claim in 3…2…1…
Where is Brandon Bryant when you need him?
No, no, no, NO, NO!! You DO NOT disturb the zombies! Shame on you! SHAME!
Do not sweat it.
He is probably stoned and telling anyone who will listen that he is a hero.
The Goat Shed Killer, a legend in his own mind(what’s left of it).
Once again the desperate need for approval of the Distinguished Warfare Medal(AKA X-Box REMF Ribbon) raises it’s ugly head. Now there are people with burning brain images running around loose in the general public.
Personally, I was a Chairborne Ranger. I was a Supply Administration and Operations Man in the Marine Corps. It was NICE to sit down to do my job. It was GREAT to be inside an air conditioned building. It sucked to have to be a fucking clerk typist for the fucking LT. But that’s hardly like being stuck in a mud hole in a rain storm.
Do I like it when grunts talk down to me? Yes, I do. I had a job to do to make sure they had what they needed to get their job done, so I would appreciate a little respect. But I’m not going to go to my local news paper, or TV station and start bitching about how “I’m a warrior too! And I need pot from the government for my bad back and PTSD from all my paper cuts!”
Mark Lauer…You made me laugh about something related. “It sucked to have to be a fucking clerk typist for the fucking LT.”
In the category of everyone has a customer to please, I decided when I had to work retail once that, “If it weren’t for the fucking customers, it would be a great job!”
“Those who think there is no such thing as a stupid question has never worked in retail”.
Yesterday it was Marine pogues whining and today it’s the Air Force Chairforce and both are getting a bunch of flak back as being wienies.
I can remember that in the 101st and 82d we had some bad-ass dudes in supply and admin. One 506th Airborne SSGT supply sergeant was so inhumanly strong he could pull those old military brass locks open with two fingers of each hand. I once watched him step outside the brigade area beer hall and work off some pent up anger by knocking concrete blocks off the beer garden wall with the heels of his hands.
Another supply clerk I roomed with (I was an RTO in the command element of a rifle company) in the the 327th had come back in the Army after working as a strip club bouncer for a few years. He looked flabby and out of shape so I made the mistake of getting in his face. Once. He hit me center chest with the flat palm of his left hand and knocked me clear across the room where it took me ten minutes to regain normal breathing. As I was doing so he was telling me in his soft voice how much he regretted having to hurt me because he liked me personally.
I made sure he never ever again had any reason not to.
At a bar in Greensboro, NC, I watched our HHC company clerk take out three townies in less than thirty seconds. I say I watched because he assured me as he slid off the bar stool, “Keep your seat. I got this one, sarge.” Man did he ever. They never laid a glove on him.
And those are just the first three clerk/admin wienies to come to mind from six years in those two divisions. Maybe we had a better class of wienies back in those days.
Maybe it would help these drone trigger pullers with their hurt feelings, if they had their own little badge. It could be called a CFB. Chair Force Badge.
Kind of like a CIB. Except, instead of a rifle inside a wreath, there could be a chair surrounded by a wreath. It could even be Air Force blue in color.
Just a thought
Wasn’t there a news report a few months ago where, in an effort to improve troop morale, somebody at the Pentagon was designing a medal to be awarded to drone operators – – – or was that for the nuclear missile silo personnel?
JRM,it was two separate medals they were proposing. One for each group. The drone medal was to be called the Distinguished Warfare Medal and the silo medal was to be called the Nuclear Deterrence Service Operations Medal.
You can tell it wasn’t US Army morale problems because no new style of hat was issued to counter it.
Or a new higher resolution reflective PT belt.
I suspect that in the future, historians will tag the reflective PT belt as the beginning of the end of the US Army as a warfighting force.
We are rapidly becoming a country of whining pansies……
Agreed. Economics 101… if you subsidize it you will create a surplus.
…..And “doorkickers” is polite conversation?
Pot, meet kettle.
Grunt was originally a slur used by pogues in ref to infantry.
It meant people too stupid to actually talk, therefore only fit for duty as bullet catchers.
When grunts took that name for themselves, the pogues changed it to Dumb Grunt, because they figured that grunts were just too stupid to comprehend that the pogues were trying to say.
Heh.
In my personal version of utopia, there’s only 1 military contract option. Everyone goes in as infantry for their first two years. Then they can opt to specialize into REMFy pogueishness if they qualify… and are found unfit to be infantry.
Did that pwecious widdwe glitter-farting tinsel mouse Air Farce Sparkle Pony even have to abide by General Order 1A when he went home to sleep in his own bed? Did he have to face anything worse than rush hour traffic going home for the night? I’m talking about traffic sans IED’s VBIED’s, ambushes and the like. Damn POG creampuffs! It sounds like tough day for them is when they almost break a sweat because someone turned the A/C temp up five degrees!
I herby volunteer to push that button at anytime for a nice Tango down. But my office will have to allow cigar smoking.(no weed)
Can someone tell me why the hell we have all of these people breaking OPSEC by talking about this sorta stuff?
Seriously, it should be illegal according to military law to discuss combat operations during a war to civilian news entities. It’s not only telling the enemy what we can do, but it’s also putting people who the storytellers don’t think about at risk, be it the grunt now having to deal with an enemy that knows what cards we have up our sleeves or the interpreter whose family is now at risk because someone leaked their name onto the internet.
Seriously. Make it treason or something, I don’t know, but we can’t just let people leak this sorta stuff to the world. The military is professional, and most of all, should know that what the bad guy doesn’t know is the thing that terrifies said bad guy the most.
The precedent for OPSEC breach has already been established by the POTUS and his various other lackeys. They’re just following the example already set.
Treason is specifically defined in Article III, Section 3, of our divinely inspired Constitution of the United States of America.
According to that definition, the guys violating OPSEC, although guilty of other crimes, are NOT guilty of treason.
However, according to that same definition, Abraham Lincoln and Dwight David Eisenhower ARE guilty of treason.
Interesting. I’ll have to study this further.
Thanks for the information, Mallernee.
Why can’t they talk to a grunt? Is his response of “yah I shot that scumfuck right in his face and it felt good” too realistic and patriotic for Americans these days?
I cheer every time I see Islamist scum being blown to pieces on YouTube drone videos. If our drone pilots aren’t they need to find new drone pilots.
“Nearly a decade-and-a-half after that first-ever intercontinental air strike by UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle], that fleeting image remains burned in to my memory.” Pussy Boy
And then there is this:
“I knew what I was doing when I stopped the war that would have killed a half a million youngsters on both sides if those bombs had not been dropped. I have no regrets and, under the same circumstances, I would do it again — and this letter is not confidential.” –That’s the last paragraph of a 1963 letter from Harry S Truman to Irv Kupcinet of the Chicago Sun Times.
If ever there was man who might have suffered a high degree of stress from something that he was responsible but not ‘on site’ for, it was Truman.
When I went through the police academy our class leader had already done 13 years at San Diego PD before he decided to come home to Hawaii.
One day while we were shooting the shit, he told me how he had killed some gang member a scant 30 days out of the academy. I asked him if it bothered him. He told me he didn’t lose one second of sleep. “The SOB was trying to kill me. Good riddance!”
He doesn’t like his job, even though I’m QUITE sure the purpose of what he did was explained to him in the beginning: here you go, you fly these drones, you launch explosive weapons at designated targets, enemy peeps will get killed, then you ago home.
Welp, this is how I feel about this drama queen waste of my tax money. Aside from the simple fact that he wasn’t getting enough attention on the job and is trying to get it now by paraphrasing sKerry’s twaddle, he’s also looking for money in the form of movie script options and/or book deals.
If he didn’t like his job, which I could do from where I sit right now, I’ll take it. It only involves remote flying, finding fixing on remote targets, and launching strikes, right? Geez, just wire my house for that systeme on a dedicated line (I don’t use WiFi), and sign me up.
I have so many axes to grind. It would relieve some of that stress. I could use the cash, too. There’s always something that needs to be fixed up.
Besides, I’d probably do a better job than he ever did.
I mistakenly read the headline as “First Finger Pulling Drone Operator Speaks Out” and thought this was going to be about some good natured hijinks in the TAC after a round of burritos.
To Richard, those of us who are or were ground pounders appreciate your son’s service as a tactical drone operator in theater (he was one of us) and none of this ribbing diminishes his service.I also bet your son wouldn’t have been whining if he had been back in the states in the cush. By the way, if he got out of the Army, have him look into the Reserves or Guard and continue his service; lots of benefits and opportunities to that for him.
I just feel like shooting people while you sit comfortable safe in a chair not even in your weapon is for cowards and drone operator’s should be ashamed of what they do and rethink the cowardice of thier “profession”. Im all for the military, pilots marines army w/e but i have zero respect for drone operators. I can atleast give 1 kudo to an enemy who is present in their war not figting from a console like your in a fucking arcade