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A condition for pilots: ‘existential conflict’

The new fog of war

THIS STORY APPEARED IN

February 05, 2012|By Farah Stockman

Colonel Charles W. Manley pilots a training simulator for the US Air Forces… (File 2008/Associated Press )

MUCH HAS been written on the psychological impact of the US drone war on the tribal areas of Pakistan, where young children have learned to recognize the buzz of a low-flying Predator just before it unleashes a hellfire missile on a neighbor’s house. But little is known about the psychological impact of this remote-controlled war on the American drone pilots who steer the unmanned weapons through the skies of Afghanistan and Pakistan from the safety of a military base in the Nevada desert.

More than 1,000 Air Force pilots man the military’s drones 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, gazing at video-game-like screens through cameras so powerful they can pick up a license plate number two miles away. What does it feel like to be a warrior on the cusp of a new era of war - one which is fought without any personal danger to oneself? What is it like to have the power to secretly watch, follow, and kill a person in a foreign land from the comfort of a control center thousands of miles away?

Last year, the Air Force conducted its first-known study on the mindset of airmen operating these drones.

“We are still trying to get our minds wrapped around the impact that this has on a human being,’’ said Wayne Chappelle, senior air medical research psychologist for the Air Force.

The six-month study looked at the stress levels and personality traits of drone pilots and sensor operators supporting US troops on the ground in Afghanistan. It did not include pilots who operate the CIA’s covert drone programs in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Iran.

Before the study, many had assumed that the main stress on drone pilots would be the parallel life that comes with virtual war, the dissonance of participating in a battle in Afghanistan or Iraq, and - hours later - driving home to eat a hamburger with your kids.

But it turns out that most drone pilots don’t seem to have problems with that kind of compartmentalization. Although 46 percent of the drone pilots reported elevated levels of stress, and 29 percent reported signs of emotional fatigue and burnout, most blamed long hours and constantly changing shifts, due to a shortage of drone pilots and the military’s steadily increasing appetite for drones.

Long stretches of monotony - staring a computer screen of foreign terrain - punctuated by short unpredictable bursts of extreme stress and life-or-death decision-making also seemed a factor in the fatigue of the drone pilots. “Sustaining vigilance is mind-numbing,’’ one pilot reported.

But that stress is not much different than what emergency room doctors and police endure, Chappelle said. Despite high levels of exhaustion, the pilots generally expressed strong feelings of teamwork and a belief that they were participating in an important mission.