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USAF Cuts Drone Flights As Stress Drives Off Operators
HughPickens.com writes: The NY Times reports that the U.S. is being forced to cut back on drone flights as America's drone operators are burning out. The Air Force is losing more drone pilots than they can train. "We're at an inflection point right now," says Col. James Cluff, the commander of the Air Force's 432nd Wing. Drone missions increased tenfold in the past decade, relentlessly pushing the operators in an effort to meet the insatiable demand for streaming video of insurgent activities in Iraq, Afghanistan and other war zones, including Somalia, Libya and now Syria. The biggest problem is that a significant number of the 1,200 pilots are completing their obligation to the Air Force and are opting to leave. Colonel Cluff says many feel "undermanned and overworked," sapped by alternating day and night shifts with little chance for academic breaks or promotion.
What had seemed to be a benefit of the job, the novel way the crews could fly Predator and Reaper drones via satellite links while living safely in the United States with their families, has created new types of stresses as they constantly shift back and forth between war and family activities and become, in effect, perpetually deployed. "Having our folks make that mental shift every day, driving into the gate and thinking, 'All right, I've got my war face on, and I'm going to the fight,' and then driving out of the gate and stopping at Walmart to pick up a carton of milk or going to the soccer game on the way home — and the fact that you can't talk about most of what you do at home — all those stressors together are what is putting pressure on the family, putting pressure on the airman," says Cruff. The colonel says the stress on the operators belied a complaint by some critics that flying drones was like playing a video game or that pressing the missile fire button 7,000 miles from the battlefield made it psychologically easier for them to kill. "Everyone else thinks that the whole program or the people behind it are a joke," says Brandon Bryant, a former drone camera operator who worked at Nellis Air Force Base, "that we are video-game warriors, that we're Nintendo warriors."
What had seemed to be a benefit of the job, the novel way the crews could fly Predator and Reaper drones via satellite links while living safely in the United States with their families, has created new types of stresses as they constantly shift back and forth between war and family activities and become, in effect, perpetually deployed. "Having our folks make that mental shift every day, driving into the gate and thinking, 'All right, I've got my war face on, and I'm going to the fight,' and then driving out of the gate and stopping at Walmart to pick up a carton of milk or going to the soccer game on the way home — and the fact that you can't talk about most of what you do at home — all those stressors together are what is putting pressure on the family, putting pressure on the airman," says Cruff. The colonel says the stress on the operators belied a complaint by some critics that flying drones was like playing a video game or that pressing the missile fire button 7,000 miles from the battlefield made it psychologically easier for them to kill. "Everyone else thinks that the whole program or the people behind it are a joke," says Brandon Bryant, a former drone camera operator who worked at Nellis Air Force Base, "that we are video-game warriors, that we're Nintendo warriors."
Buried several paragraphs into the link is the real reason for faltering numbers of UAV pilots:
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
As the article you cite says, that was/is a practice of the CIA. The same is true for "Signature Strikes", or missling people that match your demographic target profile but haven't necessarily been observed doing insurgent things.
That said I'd wager that the stress of killing innocents, even if extremely rarely and by accident, weighs heavily on most of the USAF drone pilots. When you are actually in harms way it is a lot easier to justify your actions to yourself. But as a remote pilot thousands of miles from any threat I imagine that takes a toll.
Why are drones singled out as the big evil in this regard? How many faces do you think F-16 or B-1B pilots see before and after they drop their bombs on the designated target? Drones haven't changed that, they just move the pilot out of harms way.
It's a leadership problem, as shown by this:
I can't believe any other part of the military would push people in combat arms that hard with so little chance of academic breaks or promotion opportunities. Especially promotions. This is part of a general rot in the US Air Force that has been documented in various places, such as strategic forces being considered a loser's job and the antagonism to flying the A-10 warthog to provide close air support for ground units instead of sexy modern aircraft.
Since you don't actually kill people for a living, you shouldn't comment on the effects of it. It is not a video game and it isn't something you take lightly.
Bomber WSO.
Go sit a mission sometime. It's not what you think it is. Mostly it's monotonous, boring work. When there is an actual strike, it's a big deal. It's not like a video game at all, though. I promise you that.
I have sat these missions (not as a pilot) and I don't really understand the "stress" they are talking about. Other than the shift work, which can take a toll on family life, most of the folks I know doing these missions don't feel especially stressed about it.
I suspect this is a political push to change the AF standards of training required to do the job. The Army gives their UAS pilots ground training only. The AF, as far as I know, still requires full flight training. Big time and commitment difference. The AF also requires officers to do this while the Army allows enlisted, which means you get them younger, cheaper, and typically can hold onto them better because they don't have the same civilian opportunities by getting out.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
I'd have no compunction about blowing up bad guys on TV thousands of miles away.
Then you are not a normal person. There is no logical reason than distance should make any difference, and psychologically it makes no difference. The people in your crosshairs are just as real.
What's the problem?
There are plenty of problems. I served six years in the Marine Infantry. I never pulled trigger and directly killed someone. But I was involved in planning and coordinating actions that killed people. I never thought of the people on the other side as "bad guys". I thought of them as fellow grunts with whom I had a lot in common. They just happened to be born on the other side of a political boundary, raised in a different culture, and taught different values. That doesn't make them evil. There is also always a big level of uncertainty. Sure, the target may be carrying a rifle, but maybe he is hunting, or protecting his livestock, or part of an ad hoc village security team that we don't know about. It may be clear cut in a video game, but real life isn't like that.
If killing another human being is "easy peasy" for you, and doesn't impart any stress into your life than you would be classified as a sociopath.
The sheer amount of ignorance in these replies is staggering. Surely you're able to understand that despite the fact that this person is viewing a screen they know the events are still real.
At this point I suppose it's wildly beyond your ability to understand why it might be a compounding factor to show up to work, kill a dozen people, and then go home to your kids every night.
I have a friend who was a drone operator. He suffers PTSD because of intense guilt. He says he knows for sure he was responsible for killing innocent civilians in Iraq, either because of bad luck, faulty intelligence or technical problems.
I'm not saying my friend should feel guilty. Civilian casualties are an unavoidable part of war. But it's easy for me to say that because I'm not the one who pulled the trigger.
I can't believe the posters who think that people can go around killing others, even if remotely, without it having psychological consequences.
I don't know, maybe it might be a moral thing because they're executing people they don't know, for crimes they're not even aware of simply because they're given an order by a government that doesn't even follow its own rules and in answerable to no one?! Jesus man! They're killing people! They're killing A LOT of people, without trails. There are lots of innocents the die. Kids. Fathers. Mothers. Drone strikes aren't as precise as they have you believe.
That's why they're leaving. They're probably having nightmares at night about the people they killed who they never met; never even looked into their eyes.
> If killing another human being is "easy peasy" for you, and doesn't impart any stress
> into your life than you would be classified as a sociopath.
^^^^^ This.
I feel the same way, it's appalling that half the people replying are casually stating that they'd have "no problem" killing people. People who express those kinds of sentiments are the LAST people you'd want to have the power of life and death, ESPECIALLY if it's being done remotely.
I wish I could mod you up, but alas, I cannot.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...