To the LA Times credit, they published an article, "Stress of combat reaches drone crews," by David Zucchino about the impact of combat stress (Post-Traumatic stress) on the Air Force pilots who are remotely guiding drones. But the LA Times Editors cut a key section of the story, included in the original version by David Zucchino, that would have explained to readers that combat stress is caused, not just by the trauma of being shot at, but by the trauma of killing others.
The article as written sounds mystified about what might be causing their combat stress. The Stars and Stripes picked up the story, and many of the comments on the article dismissed the idea that these pilots could possibly be impacted by post-traumatic stress, since they are safe from being shot at. Unfortunately, many people in the military, and many veterans, aren't being informed about, or being helped to deal with, the psychological damage caused by inflicting injuries on and killing other people. The LA Times Editors, by cutting this section out of the article, are, at best, omitting information that could help hundreds of thousands of suffering veterans. It's hard to avoid speculating that the LA Times Editors cut this section in an attempt to sugar-coat the horrors of war.
Of course, the article also did not address the psychological impact on civilian populations of being hit by drones, but that's a topic for a different article. Here, I want to address: what I know about how the LA Times cut the article, the crucial impact that killing has on the suffering of veterans, especially those experiencing post-traumatic stress; the ways in which the DoD, the VA, and even the Institute of Medicine are also ignoring these findings; and the devastating impact of this neglect.
Read More