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

[damnedifIknow]

"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.”

http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/06/18787450-former-drone-operator-says-hes-haunted-by-his-part-in-more-than-1600-deaths?lite

[Skidmore]

1. Have none of these military people ever considered refusing an order?

THe older I get the more I have come to loathe the military and everything it represents. The military has been placed on a pedestal and there is the expectation now that no criticism be levied against it at any level. All of its members are automatically given the status of hero by default and assumed to be men of honor. I don't understand why anyone would choose to enlist now. I just don't understand why anyone would place themselves in an organization where a part of the job is to be willing to kill on order. It doesn't matter whether you are manipulating a drone or sitting in a trench on a hill or in a tank or whatever. It's all the same. THe only way wars are going to stop is when people quit volunteering to fight them.

[onehandle]

2. I play Zombie Gunship on my iPhone now and then. Don't feel a thing.

Maybe I chose the wrong career.

[1-Old-Man]

3. I have a nephew who is a Drone Pilot, the boy disgusts me

I have a nephew who is in the Air Force and is a Drone Pilot, and has been for quite some time now. The last time I talked to him he told me "this is real war" or some bullshit very close to that. I did not tell him that I thought it was the most cowardly program in the history of the United States' military - but that is what I think.

But that is just what I think about drones and their pilots. It is immaterial that drones are used for Presidentially directed killings, it is only important that no President has any authority what so ever to exterminate US citizens on his command and that any President who has done so is guilty of murder.