Airman First Class Brandon Bryant was an experiment. He was a drone pilot over Afghanistan from a cold, soulless box in Nevada. He killed about 1,626 people (and that's only confirmed kills). He's fought through countless mental struggles like PTSD, and continues to struggle today. Matthew Power of GQ said, “This is the uncanny valley over which our drones circle. We look through them at the world, and ultimately stare back at ourselves.” No matter how many countries, no matter how many people we incinerate with hellfire missiles, pilots—and us—look back on ourselves. We're all people in this world, whether Afghani, American, or part of any other racial, cultural, religious, or social group. The “cognitive dissonance” that pilots face is the internal fight between the moral rights, and dutiful expectations. People are people, but if a soldier is told to shoot, he must shoot. As Power said, “cause and effect still applied.” When 86 pounds of rocket and 20 pounds of explosive warhead are propelled at 995 miles per hour toward a target person on the Earth, more than just the “target” are going to be obliterated. And, the designated target isn't always definitely the target of interest. Often, children and families are either hit or are in the blast radius. Imagine that; you are walking down the road one day and out of nowhere, a 50-foot radius circle on the ground quite literally reveals hell. A deafening rumble more mighty than a 4.0 magnitude earthquake rips open the ground and flames immediately leap out and singe anybody in a 65-foot radius. Those within those 50 feet are immediately massacred, their carcasses nothing more than smoke rising from the explosion, but they felt nothing. Anybody in 65-80 feet are seared worse than beef left on a grill ten minutes too long. Many die of their injuries. Those that live to tell the tale are scarred, and often injured permanently. Any buildings around are shaken, those closest to the abyss are partially, if not totally, demolished. All of this because somebody, somewhere pulled a trigger on an order from somebody they had never seen before. Men, women, children—a drop of neither discrimination nor mercy is shown in the wake of a hellfire missile dropped from a predator drone. Parents, children, brothers and sisters, friends, grandparents, anybody you have ever known could vanish with no trace aside from the gaping hole in the ground. “This is the uncanny valley over which our drones circle. We look through them at the world, and ultimately stare back at ourselves.” We do look back upon ourselves, we look down on people trying to find their way through the world despite the destruction and violence around them, and we pull the trigger. We wipe them from history without a trace and claim, “the target was dangerous.” Which was more dangerous, Uncle Sam: a single man halfway across the world, or a string of command with a young pilot at the bottom that presses a button and slams 65 feet of oblivion over from five miles in the sky at 955 miles per hour at civilians and targets alike?
Reading this article made me think about the time I was watching the TV show, Hawaii Five-O. One of their episodes was based on a drone invasion on the island of Hawaii, and how it was so threatening to the entire state. I can remember the amount of panic that was in the characters’ faces. The drone in the episode was controlled by someone who was not “in the scene”. This evil guy was more of the background guy, while using the drone to roam the land, killing innocent people. Matthew Power said, “Flying a drone can feel like a deadly two-person video game- with a pilot and sensor.” And from how I was seeing it in the episode, it did look like a video game.
I find it so intriguing that according to Power, 61 percent of Americans support the idea of military drones. “…a projection of American power that won’t risk American lives.” However, with the knowledge that drones are actually active in this world means that our very privacy is at a huge risk. It unsettles me, to say the least. As how I saw it in the Hawaii Five-O episode, the guy behind a computer screen used his drone to scout out people. That is TERRIFYING to me! The fact that some weirdo could easily look at me 24/7 using a drone is scary. The fact that it creates this “creeping sense that screens and cameras have taken…”
Although the idea of drones for the military is not a bad idea, it does come with heavy risks. As Airman First Class Brandon Bryant experienced, he remembers flying his drone when all of a sudden, “the IED had been tripped by either a pressure plate or manual detonation” causing a detonator to go off. This means that Power’s drone flew over and came into radio contact with it, causing it to go off. “Three soldiers were severely wounded and two were killed” due to this.
Bryant saw so many things during his time in Iraq. He saw a man executed two girls in the middle of a street, and left them there. Bryant said, “People just watched it and didn’t do anything.” Another time, Bryant saw two Taliban insurgents execute a local official. Like, the amount of things he saw was absolutely unreal. So often are we reminded that these soldiers give up their lives for us, which they really do. We think we can sympathize with soldiers about their experiences in a war-zone territory, but we really can. How many of us could honestly say that we have seen people execute others in real life? Very few to none of us can. The work that men and women put into fighting in the armed forces is crazy.
Bryant didn’t like the feeling of killing people. There was one night where he was on his way home and he called his mother, sobbing. This really hit me because armed forces are to do what they are called to do, even if one does not morally think it’s right. Bryant was just doing his job, killing all the people he did, and yet he still did not feel good about it. And other members reacted differently to it too. “One…whenever he made a kill, went home and chugged an entire bottle of whiskey. A female operator, after her first shot, refused to fire again even under the threat of court martial.” We are so lucky to not know what it feels like to kill someone just because it’s a job.
Back on the subject of drones, I found it interesting that Bryant said, “…when flying missions, he sometimes felt himself merging with the technology, imagining himself as a robot, a zombie, a drone itself. Such abstractions don’t possess conscience or consciousness; drones don’t care what they mean…” How horrid is that? To submerge with the technology itself. That is like our entire generation constantly depending on our iphones. Such an eerie thought.
Just to clarify, he never actually went to Iraq. He was controlling the drones from computer screens at the base in Nevada. He saw all of the horrible things, but he was still in Nevada at the Air Force base. This is also where some of the criticism he received came from, never having actually been on the ground in Iraq himself.
Thanks, Steve. That's true. He was able to see it all from a distance, but that made it no better. Maybe worse, since there was nothing to do but watch. Same thing with the exploding IED. His drone didn't cause it; as I recall, he was suspicious, but could do nothing to warn the soldiers in question.
Warning: I wrote this when I was really grumpy and had just woken up from a nap Jordan Lyonnais After reading the article I was absolutely annoyed and bothered by Mr. Bryant's attitudes toward drone warfare and the war in general. The issue is that Mr. Bryant turned against his provider for money, food, shelter, clothing, against his own government, and his fellow citizens because of a moral crisis he faced. I think that it is ludicrous that Mr. Bryant would divulge so much information that was kept classified for a reason to the press, because he suddenly had a an issue for what he signed on for. I do not think it is fair that the he jeopardized so many people when he knew that signing up for the military could mean hurting others. There is a reason you don't see pacifist on the front, and to think someone joined the military and had a wild idea that it'd be near impossible for them to harm someone just does not make sense. My other issue that is that Mr. Bryant was contracted to be a soldier in a war, as a soldier in war you're objectives are to kill whatever is deemed a threat to your country. He talked about becoming so distressed and how he hated killing those men, but how can he feel so self loathing if those are the same men that are aligned with those that blew up the convoy? It sounds terrible to justify the deaths of another person based upon revenge but realistically this is a war scenario, you cannot emphasize with the enemy. The people we were fighting and still are today are people that hate Americans with everything in them, they are people that enslave women and children every day, and these are the people would live for the moment to kill Americans. The drones are our way to combat an enemy that would prefer to blown themselves up to inflict maximum damage. I don't mean to come across as insensitive with his situation and how much he went through on account of what he did, but the work he did is necessary for our security. I wish we could live in a world where we would not have to blow up possibly innocent people half way across the world, but I am a realistic person and it's because of the times we live in that programs like these are necessary. Although I think the people that fly the drones need to be more regulated and watched carefully to avoid more Chelsea Mannings, and to help those struggling like Bryant these programs need to thrive and keep expanding. These drones are saving the lives of Americans and getting rid of threats, I will support any program that saves American lives.
A big part of the problem came from the innocent (I think we can eliminate the "possibly") people he killed. That he wasn't ready for. And that took a toll.
So suppose you take a job, and you sign a non-disclosure agreement. Then you find out that what your company is doing is harming, possibly even killing, consumers. Where is your moral obligation, then? You signed a document. You took the paycheck. Are you bound to keep quiet?
One of the things that struck me most in the article was his first mission. This was the mission where he discovered the IED using the drone before the convoy hit it, but then they weren't able to communicate with the troops on the ground about the IED. The purpose of the drones is for precision missile strikes and for surveillance to aid the troops on the ground. In this situation, the drone worked perfectly! Except the communication wasn't getting through and technology failed. All of the money that was spent on that drone to find that IED to save that team was wasted because the technology failed. That's something that is very scary and depressing for everyone involved in that situation. One of the issues with technology in war (or everyday use for that matter) is the fact that it will fail and somebody has to make the decision of how much does it cost versus how much can it consistently do correctly. Mistakes happen, but when people's lives are involved, mistakes can't happen.
Another thing that I found important in the article was the fact that the horrors of war are still very much alive even when the service member isn't even in the country. He suffered from PTSD, which is a serious problem for many veterans. Seeing the things that he saw is simply not normal. No matter how much of a "zombie" he became, humans aren't meant to see the things that he did. Some people could even argue that he had it worse, not being able to do anything about what he was seeing. For me personally I would want to help that team that was struck by the IED or save those two girls in the street and track down their murderer. I would hope that he would have felt the same way being in the military, but the fact that he couldn't control anything that he saw obviously had an effect on him. I definitely don't believe that he should have been criticized as much as he was because, although he wasn't there, he did suffer from the war as well. With this being said, I also did not like his reaction to the criticism about him talking to the media. Classified information is classified for a reason and joining the military, you know what you're signing up for, even if it may not be written in bold letters on the contract. He could have done many things to help himself with the PTSD, but talking to the media was not the right choice in my opinion.
One of my greatest fears about drone warfare is that it would be too easy. That it would be little more than a video game. And I still worry that there would be people who would see it that way, or would even take glee at killing people (from a safe, safe distance). So I'm actually encouraged by Bryant's response.
I found this article very interesting and while I gained faith in humanity while watching the movie in class I lost that while reading this article. To be honest I had no idea that the people who flew the drones were for the most part based in the United States. This made me sad because we all know that innocent civilians are being killed in these bombings. I thought that the part we're the author says that the screen he was looking at during his first killing was burned in his memory was very powerful. This was powerful to me because it reminded me of branding. If you get branded no matter how much you want to forgot the incident it will be impossible because the scar will be a constant reminder. I was surprised to learn that even though the drone operators sit in a box in the desert they still have to wear their regulation green flight suits. I understand that it is protocol but if I had 12 hour shifts in box I would want something that would be light weight so that you did not sweat as much. I have to agree with the article when it said that it can feel like a deadly video game. While reading the article it reminded me of when I spend a night with a few friends and we play video games almost the whole time. Many aspects are similar: you sit in a dark room and stare at a screen for multiple hours. However, while controlling a drone you are playing with innocent peoples lives who will not respawn after 5 seconds. Personally I do not agree with drone warfare. While it can be affective and save people's lives but right now it is being used without always fully investigating the situation. This thought was backed up when Bryant said that he was certain that a child ran out of the house he had just sent a missile on. I have to agree with Bryant when he says that drone veterans can also have terrible PTSD. I would probably have more serious PTSD if I was a drone pilot. On the battlefield at least you can somewhat justify killing the people that you did because if you did not kill them they might have killed you. If you were a drone pilot you are killing people and what happens if you don’t? You keep looking at your screen in your box thousands of miles away of the danger of being killed.
Reading the first paragraph, this could be made into a movie. A gritty, (excuse my language) effed-up movie. Aside from the topic of the article, very well written in my opinion. Matthew Power knows how to draw a reader in. Jesus, okay, this isn't creepy or anything. The second he turned on infrared visibility it's like the three men weren't even people anymore, they were just bright red targets. What kind of mindset does it take to do a job like this Nevada man does? It's hard to respect such a thing; it sounds like an occupation for psychopaths. By God, maybe a little too much description of the bodies in the bloody crater... It mentioned he couldn't even see if there were weapons on them. I can't imagine taking such immediate orders without being sure of threat. Brandon Bryant sounds like a robot. He also sounds like he was a fantasy child (Lord of the Rings, Dungeons and Dragons). This may have helped him more easily do his job, like he was simply playing a video game and not killing people with drones. I'm surprised he continued after his first day at work. The phrase "first day at work" sounds like such a small worry, like "the first day of school." The kind of thing that your mom would say is a "big deal." The first day of work is intense, but the first day of Bryant's work was... horrifying. Is it worth the salary? tbc. That was a great bedtime story...
I personally found this article to be very insightful and interesting. I have heard about drone usage and the controversy that this often surmounts to in the news and other media often, but never paid much attention to what it actually was or how drone warfare worked. The prominence of this next generation warfare was really sobering and shocking to me, as shown by the 2025 predictions where drones could be an $82 billion dollar business and employ an additional 100,000 workers. Drones are used to target individuals who we believe are American enemies and kill them in the comfort of a control room on American soil itself. This practice, as Bryant points out in the article, is very impersonal and harmful to not only the targets, but the individuals in control of the drones like himself. There is no real way to determine if a person is, in fact an enemy of the state, aside from the intelligence provided. It is very possible that an innocent person could be killed out of suspicion or confusion and the guilt of this mistake could weigh very heavily on the controller. Drones make killing so much easier and surreal that killing seems to be just the opposite of what is happening. Bryant was responsible for controlling the drones that killed 1,626 individuals and found himself likening it to a game. This prompted him to quit and seek counseling, where he was diagnosed with PTSD. This was a very profound diagnosis, as it is now considered to be a “moral injury.” This definition is way more fitting in my opinion. Trauma is more than just physical being, it is the alteration of a moral psyche- which Bryant unfortunately underwent. He lost the weight of what he was doing for a job and felt that steps needed to be taken to validate himself and feel good about his purpose in life again, so he left his job and trained to be an EMT. Once Bryant spoke out about his experiences, he was faced with an immense backlash on the Internet, which I thought was sad. He joined the military when he was only 21 years old and was simply following orders to protect his country. People that hide behind fake online identifications to destroy the spirit of other people are true cowards in any case- not just Bryant’s. All in all, this new knowledge about the true usage of drones was very eye-opening for me and prompted some new questions to arise. This very well could be the future of warfare; with the lines between enemy and civilian blurred and weaponry stealthily hidden. What if these people used our own weaponry against us one day? The fear and panic would be harrowing; a true reflection of how those in the Middle East trying to go about their lives in an honest and peaceful fashion must feel. Only time will tell, I suppose.
Warfare has definitely evolved and changed over the last few decades. Technology has changed the ways wars are fought and how soldiers are utilized. The new technologies have definitely helped the U.S. gain a strong upper hand on most of the enemies that we fight today. However, these technologies have also made killing people much easier and can be done with little thought to it. The new drone systems being used today are a remarkable advance in warfare as they allow pilots to eliminate targets and scout targets from the safety of America without having to come into any real danger. They can take out a target at the push of a button and not have to really know why they are killing them. The orders work their way down the chain of command and eventually reach the pilots who carry out these orders. I find this sort of treatment to be unfair to the pilots. They have right to know who these targets are and why exactly they are being called upon to end their lives. Killing someone is no easy task. We as humans take this sort of action with a lot of mental stress. Knowing that the person you are killing is a threat to someone you know or just an overall threat to your country can definitely settle a person's mind. They then know what they did was for the best and can accept that. However, blindly shooting at targets that you can interpret as non-hostile will wear you down mentally. For example, Bryant talked about how he fired at a mud hut because he was ordered to and they believed that there was a high value target inside. At the last second, what appeared to be a child darted out from inside the hut, before it was blown up. The "scout" claimed it to be a dog, but Bryant swears it to be a child. This kind of lying and trickery making its way down the chain of command will absolutely leave the pilots questioning what they are doing. The official report didn’t even mention a possibility of a dog being on the premises, just that the target was eliminated. Now in Bryant's mind now, he believes he is being lied to and begins to question all of his kills and whether they are legitimate. How does he know all the other targets were not possibly harmless as well? This feeling of being disconnected not only from the reasons for eliminating these targets, but also from the battle itself and feeling like a robot makes these pilots have incredible mental stress. They feel like zombies is what Bryant kept saying, just zombies behind a monitor carrying out their orders. Bryant and all the other pilots feeling disconnected and seeing the carnage for an extended period of time as they watch people clean up the mess, effects these soldiers in new ways sometimes different to the typical soldier. As we saw from the Facebook posts and various comments made by people, everyone just doesn’t understand the harsh things these men must do and deal with, even if they're not physically at the battle.
Connor and Pieter both write of a child running *out* of the house. I didn't remember it that way, so I checked.
“This figure runs around the corner, the outside, toward the front of the building. And it looked like a little kid to me. Like a little human person.” Bryant stared at the screen, frozen. “There’s this giant flash, and all of a sudden there’s no person there.” He looked over at the pilot and asked, “Did that look like a child to you?” They typed a chat message to their screener, an intelligence observer who was watching the shot from “somewhere in the world”—maybe Bagram, maybe the Pentagon, Bryant had no idea—asking if a child had just run directly into the path of their shot.
Bryant is upset by the possibility that he killed (on command and via a drone, but still) a child? Did you get that, or did you feel the child escaped?
Airman First Class Brandon Bryant was an experiment. He was a drone pilot over Afghanistan from a cold, soulless box in Nevada. He killed about 1,626 people (and that's only confirmed kills). He's fought through countless mental struggles like PTSD, and continues to struggle today. Matthew Power of GQ said, “This is the uncanny valley over which our drones circle. We look through them at the world, and ultimately stare back at ourselves.” No matter how many countries, no matter how many people we incinerate with hellfire missiles, pilots—and us—look back on ourselves. We're all people in this world, whether Afghani, American, or part of any other racial, cultural, religious, or social group. The “cognitive dissonance” that pilots face is the internal fight between the moral rights, and dutiful expectations. People are people, but if a soldier is told to shoot, he must shoot. As Power said, “cause and effect still applied.” When 86 pounds of rocket and 20 pounds of explosive warhead are propelled at 995 miles per hour toward a target person on the Earth, more than just the “target” are going to be obliterated. And, the designated target isn't always definitely the target of interest. Often, children and families are either hit or are in the blast radius. Imagine that; you are walking down the road one day and out of nowhere, a 50-foot radius circle on the ground quite literally reveals hell. A deafening rumble more mighty than a 4.0 magnitude earthquake rips open the ground and flames immediately leap out and singe anybody in a 65-foot radius. Those within those 50 feet are immediately massacred, their carcasses nothing more than smoke rising from the explosion, but they felt nothing. Anybody in 65-80 feet are seared worse than beef left on a grill ten minutes too long. Many die of their injuries. Those that live to tell the tale are scarred, and often injured permanently. Any buildings around are shaken, those closest to the abyss are partially, if not totally, demolished. All of this because somebody, somewhere pulled a trigger on an order from somebody they had never seen before. Men, women, children—a drop of neither discrimination nor mercy is shown in the wake of a hellfire missile dropped from a predator drone. Parents, children, brothers and sisters, friends, grandparents, anybody you have ever known could vanish with no trace aside from the gaping hole in the ground. “This is the uncanny valley over which our drones circle. We look through them at the world, and ultimately stare back at ourselves.” We do look back upon ourselves, we look down on people trying to find their way through the world despite the destruction and violence around them, and we pull the trigger. We wipe them from history without a trace and claim, “the target was dangerous.” Which was more dangerous, Uncle Sam: a single man halfway across the world, or a string of command with a young pilot at the bottom that presses a button and slams 65 feet of oblivion over from five miles in the sky at 955 miles per hour at civilians and targets alike?
ReplyDeleteReading this article made me think about the time I was watching the TV show, Hawaii Five-O. One of their episodes was based on a drone invasion on the island of Hawaii, and how it was so threatening to the entire state. I can remember the amount of panic that was in the characters’ faces. The drone in the episode was controlled by someone who was not “in the scene”. This evil guy was more of the background guy, while using the drone to roam the land, killing innocent people. Matthew Power said, “Flying a drone can feel like a deadly two-person video game- with a pilot and sensor.” And from how I was seeing it in the episode, it did look like a video game.
ReplyDeleteI find it so intriguing that according to Power, 61 percent of Americans support the idea of military drones. “…a projection of American power that won’t risk American lives.” However, with the knowledge that drones are actually active in this world means that our very privacy is at a huge risk. It unsettles me, to say the least. As how I saw it in the Hawaii Five-O episode, the guy behind a computer screen used his drone to scout out people. That is TERRIFYING to me! The fact that some weirdo could easily look at me 24/7 using a drone is scary. The fact that it creates this “creeping sense that screens and cameras have taken…”
Although the idea of drones for the military is not a bad idea, it does come with heavy risks. As Airman First Class Brandon Bryant experienced, he remembers flying his drone when all of a sudden, “the IED had been tripped by either a pressure plate or manual detonation” causing a detonator to go off. This means that Power’s drone flew over and came into radio contact with it, causing it to go off. “Three soldiers were severely wounded and two were killed” due to this.
Bryant saw so many things during his time in Iraq. He saw a man executed two girls in the middle of a street, and left them there. Bryant said, “People just watched it and didn’t do anything.” Another time, Bryant saw two Taliban insurgents execute a local official. Like, the amount of things he saw was absolutely unreal. So often are we reminded that these soldiers give up their lives for us, which they really do. We think we can sympathize with soldiers about their experiences in a war-zone territory, but we really can. How many of us could honestly say that we have seen people execute others in real life? Very few to none of us can. The work that men and women put into fighting in the armed forces is crazy.
Bryant didn’t like the feeling of killing people. There was one night where he was on his way home and he called his mother, sobbing. This really hit me because armed forces are to do what they are called to do, even if one does not morally think it’s right. Bryant was just doing his job, killing all the people he did, and yet he still did not feel good about it. And other members reacted differently to it too. “One…whenever he made a kill, went home and chugged an entire bottle of whiskey. A female operator, after her first shot, refused to fire again even under the threat of court martial.” We are so lucky to not know what it feels like to kill someone just because it’s a job.
Back on the subject of drones, I found it interesting that Bryant said, “…when flying missions, he sometimes felt himself merging with the technology, imagining himself as a robot, a zombie, a drone itself. Such abstractions don’t possess conscience or consciousness; drones don’t care what they mean…” How horrid is that? To submerge with the technology itself. That is like our entire generation constantly depending on our iphones. Such an eerie thought.
Just to clarify, he never actually went to Iraq. He was controlling the drones from computer screens at the base in Nevada. He saw all of the horrible things, but he was still in Nevada at the Air Force base. This is also where some of the criticism he received came from, never having actually been on the ground in Iraq himself.
DeleteThanks, Steve. That's true. He was able to see it all from a distance, but that made it no better. Maybe worse, since there was nothing to do but watch. Same thing with the exploding IED. His drone didn't cause it; as I recall, he was suspicious, but could do nothing to warn the soldiers in question.
DeleteWarning: I wrote this when I was really grumpy and had just woken up from a nap
ReplyDeleteJordan Lyonnais
After reading the article I was absolutely annoyed and bothered by Mr. Bryant's attitudes toward drone warfare and the war in general. The issue is that Mr. Bryant turned against his provider for money, food, shelter, clothing, against his own government, and his fellow citizens because of a moral crisis he faced. I think that it is ludicrous that Mr. Bryant would divulge so much information that was kept classified for a reason to the press, because he suddenly had a an issue for what he signed on for. I do not think it is fair that the he jeopardized so many people when he knew that signing up for the military could mean hurting others. There is a reason you don't see pacifist on the front, and to think someone joined the military and had a wild idea that it'd be near impossible for them to harm someone just does not make sense.
My other issue that is that Mr. Bryant was contracted to be a soldier in a war, as a soldier in war you're objectives are to kill whatever is deemed a threat to your country. He talked about becoming so distressed and how he hated killing those men, but how can he feel so self loathing if those are the same men that are aligned with those that blew up the convoy? It sounds terrible to justify the deaths of another person based upon revenge but realistically this is a war scenario, you cannot emphasize with the enemy. The people we were fighting and still are today are people that hate Americans with everything in them, they are people that enslave women and children every day, and these are the people would live for the moment to kill Americans. The drones are our way to combat an enemy that would prefer to blown themselves up to inflict maximum damage. I don't mean to come across as insensitive with his situation and how much he went through on account of what he did, but the work he did is necessary for our security.
I wish we could live in a world where we would not have to blow up possibly innocent people half way across the world, but I am a realistic person and it's because of the times we live in that programs like these are necessary. Although I think the people that fly the drones need to be more regulated and watched carefully to avoid more Chelsea Mannings, and to help those struggling like Bryant these programs need to thrive and keep expanding. These drones are saving the lives of Americans and getting rid of threats, I will support any program that saves American lives.
Jordan, this may sound stupid and formulaic, but I agree with you 100% and just wanted to let you know.
DeleteA big part of the problem came from the innocent (I think we can eliminate the "possibly") people he killed. That he wasn't ready for. And that took a toll.
DeleteSo suppose you take a job, and you sign a non-disclosure agreement. Then you find out that what your company is doing is harming, possibly even killing, consumers. Where is your moral obligation, then? You signed a document. You took the paycheck. Are you bound to keep quiet?
One of the things that struck me most in the article was his first mission. This was the mission where he discovered the IED using the drone before the convoy hit it, but then they weren't able to communicate with the troops on the ground about the IED. The purpose of the drones is for precision missile strikes and for surveillance to aid the troops on the ground. In this situation, the drone worked perfectly! Except the communication wasn't getting through and technology failed. All of the money that was spent on that drone to find that IED to save that team was wasted because the technology failed. That's something that is very scary and depressing for everyone involved in that situation. One of the issues with technology in war (or everyday use for that matter) is the fact that it will fail and somebody has to make the decision of how much does it cost versus how much can it consistently do correctly. Mistakes happen, but when people's lives are involved, mistakes can't happen.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that I found important in the article was the fact that the horrors of war are still very much alive even when the service member isn't even in the country. He suffered from PTSD, which is a serious problem for many veterans. Seeing the things that he saw is simply not normal. No matter how much of a "zombie" he became, humans aren't meant to see the things that he did. Some people could even argue that he had it worse, not being able to do anything about what he was seeing. For me personally I would want to help that team that was struck by the IED or save those two girls in the street and track down their murderer. I would hope that he would have felt the same way being in the military, but the fact that he couldn't control anything that he saw obviously had an effect on him. I definitely don't believe that he should have been criticized as much as he was because, although he wasn't there, he did suffer from the war as well. With this being said, I also did not like his reaction to the criticism about him talking to the media. Classified information is classified for a reason and joining the military, you know what you're signing up for, even if it may not be written in bold letters on the contract. He could have done many things to help himself with the PTSD, but talking to the media was not the right choice in my opinion.
One of my greatest fears about drone warfare is that it would be too easy. That it would be little more than a video game. And I still worry that there would be people who would see it that way, or would even take glee at killing people (from a safe, safe distance). So I'm actually encouraged by Bryant's response.
DeleteI found this article very interesting and while I gained faith in humanity while watching the movie in class I lost that while reading this article. To be honest I had no idea that the people who flew the drones were for the most part based in the United States. This made me sad because we all know that innocent civilians are being killed in these bombings. I thought that the part we're the author says that the screen he was looking at during his first killing was burned in his memory was very powerful. This was powerful to me because it reminded me of branding. If you get branded no matter how much you want to forgot the incident it will be impossible because the scar will be a constant reminder. I was surprised to learn that even though the drone operators sit in a box in the desert they still have to wear their regulation green flight suits. I understand that it is protocol but if I had 12 hour shifts in box I would want something that would be light weight so that you did not sweat as much. I have to agree with the article when it said that it can feel like a deadly video game. While reading the article it reminded me of when I spend a night with a few friends and we play video games almost the whole time. Many aspects are similar: you sit in a dark room and stare at a screen for multiple hours. However, while controlling a drone you are playing with innocent peoples lives who will not respawn after 5 seconds. Personally I do not agree with drone warfare. While it can be affective and save people's lives but right now it is being used without always fully investigating the situation. This thought was backed up when Bryant said that he was certain that a child ran out of the house he had just sent a missile on. I have to agree with Bryant when he says that drone veterans can also have terrible PTSD. I would probably have more serious PTSD if I was a drone pilot. On the battlefield at least you can somewhat justify killing the people that you did because if you did not kill them they might have killed you. If you were a drone pilot you are killing people and what happens if you don’t? You keep looking at your screen in your box thousands of miles away of the danger of being killed.
ReplyDeleteReading the first paragraph, this could be made into a movie. A gritty, (excuse my language) effed-up movie. Aside from the topic of the article, very well written in my opinion. Matthew Power knows how to draw a reader in.
ReplyDeleteJesus, okay, this isn't creepy or anything. The second he turned on infrared visibility it's like the three men weren't even people anymore, they were just bright red targets. What kind of mindset does it take to do a job like this Nevada man does? It's hard to respect such a thing; it sounds like an occupation for psychopaths. By God, maybe a little too much description of the bodies in the bloody crater... It mentioned he couldn't even see if there were weapons on them. I can't imagine taking such immediate orders without being sure of threat. Brandon Bryant sounds like a robot. He also sounds like he was a fantasy child (Lord of the Rings, Dungeons and Dragons). This may have helped him more easily do his job, like he was simply playing a video game and not killing people with drones. I'm surprised he continued after his first day at work. The phrase "first day at work" sounds like such a small worry, like "the first day of school." The kind of thing that your mom would say is a "big deal." The first day of work is intense, but the first day of Bryant's work was... horrifying. Is it worth the salary?
tbc. That was a great bedtime story...
I personally found this article to be very insightful and interesting. I have heard about drone usage and the controversy that this often surmounts to in the news and other media often, but never paid much attention to what it actually was or how drone warfare worked. The prominence of this next generation warfare was really sobering and shocking to me, as shown by the 2025 predictions where drones could be an $82 billion dollar business and employ an additional 100,000 workers. Drones are used to target individuals who we believe are American enemies and kill them in the comfort of a control room on American soil itself. This practice, as Bryant points out in the article, is very impersonal and harmful to not only the targets, but the individuals in control of the drones like himself. There is no real way to determine if a person is, in fact an enemy of the state, aside from the intelligence provided. It is very possible that an innocent person could be killed out of suspicion or confusion and the guilt of this mistake could weigh very heavily on the controller. Drones make killing so much easier and surreal that killing seems to be just the opposite of what is happening. Bryant was responsible for controlling the drones that killed 1,626 individuals and found himself likening it to a game. This prompted him to quit and seek counseling, where he was diagnosed with PTSD. This was a very profound diagnosis, as it is now considered to be a “moral injury.” This definition is way more fitting in my opinion. Trauma is more than just physical being, it is the alteration of a moral psyche- which Bryant unfortunately underwent. He lost the weight of what he was doing for a job and felt that steps needed to be taken to validate himself and feel good about his purpose in life again, so he left his job and trained to be an EMT. Once Bryant spoke out about his experiences, he was faced with an immense backlash on the Internet, which I thought was sad. He joined the military when he was only 21 years old and was simply following orders to protect his country. People that hide behind fake online identifications to destroy the spirit of other people are true cowards in any case- not just Bryant’s. All in all, this new knowledge about the true usage of drones was very eye-opening for me and prompted some new questions to arise. This very well could be the future of warfare; with the lines between enemy and civilian blurred and weaponry stealthily hidden. What if these people used our own weaponry against us one day? The fear and panic would be harrowing; a true reflection of how those in the Middle East trying to go about their lives in an honest and peaceful fashion must feel. Only time will tell, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteConnor says:
ReplyDeleteWarfare has definitely evolved and changed over the last few decades. Technology has changed the ways wars are fought and how soldiers are utilized. The new technologies have definitely helped the U.S. gain a strong upper hand on most of the enemies that we fight today. However, these technologies have also made killing people much easier and can be done with little thought to it. The new drone systems being used today are a remarkable advance in warfare as they allow pilots to eliminate targets and scout targets from the safety of America without having to come into any real danger. They can take out a target at the push of a button and not have to really know why they are killing them. The orders work their way down the chain of command and eventually reach the pilots who carry out these orders. I find this sort of treatment to be unfair to the pilots. They have right to know who these targets are and why exactly they are being called upon to end their lives. Killing someone is no easy task. We as humans take this sort of action with a lot of mental stress. Knowing that the person you are killing is a threat to someone you know or just an overall threat to your country can definitely settle a person's mind. They then know what they did was for the best and can accept that. However, blindly shooting at targets that you can interpret as non-hostile will wear you down mentally. For example, Bryant talked about how he fired at a mud hut because he was ordered to and they believed that there was a high value target inside. At the last second, what appeared to be a child darted out from inside the hut, before it was blown up. The "scout" claimed it to be a dog, but Bryant swears it to be a child. This kind of lying and trickery making its way down the chain of command will absolutely leave the pilots questioning what they are doing. The official report didn’t even mention a possibility of a dog being on the premises, just that the target was eliminated. Now in Bryant's mind now, he believes he is being lied to and begins to question all of his kills and whether they are legitimate. How does he know all the other targets were not possibly harmless as well? This feeling of being disconnected not only from the reasons for eliminating these targets, but also from the battle itself and feeling like a robot makes these pilots have incredible mental stress. They feel like zombies is what Bryant kept saying, just zombies behind a monitor carrying out their orders. Bryant and all the other pilots feeling disconnected and seeing the carnage for an extended period of time as they watch people clean up the mess, effects these soldiers in new ways sometimes different to the typical soldier. As we saw from the Facebook posts and various comments made by people, everyone just doesn’t understand the harsh things these men must do and deal with, even if they're not physically at the battle.
Connor and Pieter both write of a child running *out* of the house. I didn't remember it that way, so I checked.
ReplyDelete“This figure runs around the corner, the outside, toward the front of the building. And it looked like a little kid to me. Like a little human person.”
Bryant stared at the screen, frozen. “There’s this giant flash, and all of a sudden there’s no person there.” He looked over at the pilot and asked, “Did that look like a child to you?” They typed a chat message to their screener, an intelligence observer who was watching the shot from “somewhere in the world”—maybe Bagram, maybe the Pentagon, Bryant had no idea—asking if a child had just run directly into the path of their shot.
Bryant is upset by the possibility that he killed (on command and via a drone, but still) a child? Did you get that, or did you feel the child escaped?