Posted on 08/07/2008 2:40:00 PM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
The Air National Guardsmen who operate Predator drones over Iraq via remote control, launching deadly missile attacks from the safety of Southern California 7,000 miles away, are suffering some of the same psychological stresses as their comrades on the battlefield.
(Excerpt) Read more at ap.google.com ...
/johnny
I think AP is just pulling stuff out of their miserable butts to make up news...
I think every gamer on earth would pay to do it.
Maybe these armchair warriors suffer because they don’t get to kill ENOUGH bad guys.
I wouldn’t mind that duty at all. I love to fly and would have no problem unleashing some hellfires or 500lbers on the enemy. Just take a look at what has happened to some of our troops. It wouldn’t pain me at all seeing them blown to hell. Maybe they just want some sort of syndrome pay. If your not cut out for it don’t do it.
I don’t know. The realization that you’re pushing the button in an air-conditioned trailer in the States, and blowing up somebody for real thousands of miles away...it’s part and parcel of joining the military, but still, not everybody’s going to just be able to blithely kill people, even the ones that deserve killing. And like somebody else said, even the thought of blue-on-blue...
}:-)4
A sniper is under stress and can lose his own life. He lives in the filth, heat, etc.
30 years from now, I can see some old grizzled vet, his grandchildren gathered around him, showing them the Purple Heart he got from Carpal Tunnel syndrome chasing some Muzzie into a cave.
I worked for General Atomics, the drone manufacturer, when they were first getting the program going and i got to talk with several of the pilots. First, they are not easy to fly. Second, it is easy to get overloaded with requests for data. And third, it was described to me as being extremely tedious work. One former military fighter pilot admitted it was the most precise flying he had to do with the least amount of feed back.
I wonder how the shift change goes with these birds. Since they can fly for up to 24 hours, it must take more than one person to fly it per shift.
Old Civil War vets that marched in rows to meet their enemies mock the current generation that uses trenches and airplanes to avoid enemy fire.
I'm proud of these guys and think they should be proud of their duties. This isn't a chest thumping contest.
No, they suffer PTSD from fear of being arrested for doing their job!
Everytime they hit the fire button, they could get jail time.
SO BLOODY STUPID...
To suggest that there is no stress involved ... as you do ... is just silly.
Put yourself in the place of one of these guys. Suppose you've been hunting a carload of bad guys since noon, say, you kill them at 3:30, and then when you get off-shift at 4:30 (say), you rush off to your kid's birthday party.
What a weird, surreal world that would be: spend half the day as a ruthless agent of remote-controlled violent death in one breath, and then you're out playing loving dad a couple of hours later....
I don't know about a manly man like you, but that might well mess with my head.
It'd be a pretty tough transition between work and home. Just imagine:
"Hi, daddy! Look! I made a mud pie. What did you do at work today?"
"Well, little one, I blew apart a carload of bad guys. Killed about 6, I think, but they were in too many pieces to be sure."
It would be a surreal sort of life -- difficult to maintain for long, because of the stark differences between work and home.
Interesting point. Constantly having to turn the combat mindset on and off is probably hard on the old noggin'
Journalism school! Now there is a stress filled environment!
Then they need to make peace with it. I was glad for every one of those bastards I killed. I'm disappointed I didn't get to end more of them. To be able to do it from the comfort of an office in the U.S. would be awesome.
>It’s really no different than being a sniper and snipers can and do suffer from issues related to killing people, even when they are bad guys who deserve it.<
Obviously you have never been in combat on the ground. The signifigance of the sounds and smells what a Predator operator or any pilot will never know. It is those moments of sheer terror and overcoming your own fears that signify combat not the mental weight of having killed half a dozen people in self defense.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.