Comment Paper Four

In lectures and readings we have discussed the effects of drone warfare on the drone operators. These include PTSD and high levels of stress and burnout. People make the argument that these statistics signify some fault in the program and that the effects on the drone operators are somehow abnormal. However, I believe that most American workers suffer some level of stress and burnout even doing the most common jobs. Americans expect to suffer from high levels of stress because of the amount of hours most of us work. My other problem is the PTSD percentage. The slides say that it is at 4% for drone an operator which is high but that figure is still lower than the combat troops. I can understand the emotional connection that the drone operators form with their targets and that often they see children and women that will be dead in an instant once they pull that trigger. Terrorists don’t discriminate between women and children when they strike. Often the women and children are used to advance bomb materials because our soldiers tend to trust them more. All this being said it must be hard for soldiers to fulfill these orders and the stress must be immense.

The main issue I see is having the drone operators work for such long extended periods of time. More effort needs to be put into the training of more drone crews to alleviate the stress and work load for the current drone operators. This will allow them to have more down time between missions and take vacations where they can escape the area that they live in. It is not unreasonable to expect these high stress levels when they have been working so hard.

I don’t know the exact limitations on women in combat settings, but a push to have more female drone operators also should be done. Experience in video games need not be a previous requirement as the acquiring of those skills is fairly easy. The efforts of women in previous wars have been commendable on the home front and in action. We should no longer bar women from showing their patriotism in different ways such as combat. The establishment said having black soldiers would lower morale and they would not perform at the same level as whites. The establishment said that having homosexuals would lower the morale of straight troops. Both these claims have been disproven time and time again. Many women see the right to fight for their country as an honorable responsibility. All citizens should have the same rights and also the same responsibilities. War is no longer masculine and the change in gender roles should change accordingly.