There are reportedly over 6,000 drones in the United States military, a number that began at 60 only a couple of years ago.
For the United States, drones have their obvious benefits, allowing for specific tageting of high value targets from outside of harm’s way. Of course there is always a considerable amount of collateral damage stemming from their use as well (UK media reports have indicated that as many as 175 children have been killed in drone strikes since 2004).
But drones are obviously more than just robots in the sky, the men piloting them are highly trained. Today, four anonymous U.S. Predator Drone pilots answered a bevy of questions during a reddit AMA, and the topic of gaming naturally came up.
Here are a couple of memorable questions/responses (via VB):
Reddit user OMGWTFBBQCrew asked the team: “What kind of training do you undergo to pilot these seemingly ‘real life video games’?”
It is a six-month course crammed into one month of intense training earning us an FAA student pilot license,” the pilot known as S said. “A lot of studying is involved, so we are required to hit the books pretty damn hard. We do, however, have personnel who are in fact licensed pilots ranging from small Cessna planes to regular, commercial planes like 747s. As for the video game part of the job, it usually involves a lot of Call of Duty on our down time.
Drone pilots flying drones on COD in their down time? Sounds about right?
Another drone pilot replied with the sentiment that ““We are all about that Call of Duty — lol.”
But how much is piloting a drone IRL like something you’d do in COD? The response was simple, and somewhat amusing:
I can tell you that this is the Boringest game of COD you’ll ever play.
Other interesting tid-bits worth noting…when asked if the Drone pilots feel any guilt when launching an attack, one of the pilots responded:
Personally, Yes and no. I’m military. I will protect my “brothers”, friendlies in every way possible. That’s not to say I don’t think about the person I, or whoever, blew up in hindsight. It’s just that my first and foremost responsibility is to protect my own. Reality of it all is that the bad guy has this same mentality
And regarding whether using drones has “desensitized the pilots”:
No. We understand that the lives we see in the screens are as real as our own. We are located in a combat zone. Although, we are not typical combat troops, so, for me to say that I can tell you the differences between how we feel and how an infantryman feels would be based on assumptions that I would make of an infantryman’s feelings. That would not be accurate or fair to those troops.
…I would not compare what I do as a job comparable to Call of Duty/any other video game, in any sense. It is very real and the seriousness of the lives on the ground is very real and instilled in all of our training. It is never something that we joke about. Very serious business.
A full transcript of the AMA can be found here.
Paul Nyhart – who has written 881 posts on The Jace Hall Show.
Paul Nyhart has been the Head Editor and Writer of JaceHallShow.com since Season 3. He began his career as a sports announcer, segueing into the world of voice-over and film production. Send all tips to Paul@HDfilms.com

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