29 December, 2013

I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on | Heather Linebaugh | Comment is free | theguardian.com

I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on | Heather Linebaugh | Comment is free | theguardian.com: But here's the thing: I may not have been on the ground in Afghanistan, but I watched parts of the conflict in great detail on a screen for days on end. I know the feeling you experience when you see someone die. Horrifying barely covers it. And when you are exposed to it over and over again it becomes like a small video, embedded in your head, forever on repeat, causing psychological pain and suffering that many people will hopefully never experience. UAV troops are victim to not only the haunting memories of this work that they carry with them, but also the guilt of always being a little unsure of how accurate their confirmations of weapons or identification of hostile individuals were.