alt Hacker NewsThis was a big thing for drone people based out of Eppley AFB in Omaha. Wake up, drive to work, attack enemies, drive home, sit there eating dinner with your family trying to pretend you didn’t kill someone and can’t talk about it. Combat troops get to lean on each other after a firefight: “dude, good shot. That guy was about to get us!” You get validation that you did something to safe you and your friends, and it’s still a heavy burden, but you have people who were there telling you that you’re a good person and did the right thing.
The Air Force did something shockingly reasonable (according to the newspaper coverage): they require all pilots to attend mandatory counseling sessions. Then there was no sign of weakness or any of that toxic nonsense. “Ugh, guess I have to go talk to the doc today, and I don’t want to, but guess orders are orders.”
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I feel more compassion for the innocent people they killed and it's not even close.
Can’t speak for others but the most damaging part of direct combat is watching people that you consider to be family die or be maimed.
that's because they were the ones being threatened, they were at risk, and they did the kill shot as self-protection (putting aside whether they should have been there in the first place). Drone warfare isn't the same thing. People who kill by drone aren't "at war", more often than not now, just killers. Their buddies aren't there, they aren't there, and they were really never at risk of much but being sent to the brig if they defied orders.
News just in: talking about your mental health, especially for men, does not improve your mental health.
For the majority of men, most of the time.
If it did, shouldn’t we see mental health improving by now?
It appears to be a huge lapse on the part of command. These people should have eaten dinner thinking "I got them good, these fuckers".
Not bombing weddings could help as well...
Some minor quibbles...
It's Offut AFB, home of StratCom. Eppely is the municipal airport. And Offut doesn't have any drone units, nor do they manage any. They due process reconnaissance for sure, but actual drone strikes aren't conducted from there.
Creech AFB is where most of the drone units operating Reaper/Avenger etc are based.