Image of the Day

By
Helen Pow
Drone operators: A drone pilot, left, and a drone sensor operator practice
on a simulator at Holloman Air Force base in New Mexico
A former U.S. drone operator has opened up about the toll of killing
scores of innocent people by pressing a button from a control room in
New Mexico.
Brandon Bryant, 27, from Missoula, Montana, spent six years in the
Air Force operating Predator drones from inside a dark container.
But, after following orders to shoot and kill a child in Afghanistan, he
knew he couldn't keep doing what he was doing and quit the military.
'I saw men, women and children die during that time,' he told Spiegel
Online. 'I never thought I would kill that many people. In fact, I thought I
couldn't kill anyone at all.'
Bryant joined the military by accident when he accompanied a friend
who was enlisting in the army and heard that he could go to university for
free if he signed up to the Air Force.
He excelled in his course and was assigned to an intelligence
collection unit where he soon learned how to control the cameras and
lasers on a drone, to analyse ground images, maps and weather data.
He was made a sensor operator, the equivalent of co-pilot, and at just
20 flew his first mission over Iraq - seated in the safety of a control room
in Nevada.
But it began to take its toll immediately.