The Casualties at the Other End of the Remote-Controlled Kill
REDWOOD VALLEY, Calif. — After hiding all night in the mountains, Air Force Capt. Kevin Larson crouched behind a boulder and watched the forest through his breath, waiting for the police he knew would come. It was Jan. 19, 2020. He was clinging to an assault rifle with 30 rounds and a conviction that, after all he had been through, there was no way he was going to prison.
In the Air Force, drone pilots did not pick the targets. That was the job of someone pilots called “the customer.” The customer might be a conventional ground force commander, the CIA or a classified Special Operations strike cell. It did not matter. The customer got what the customer wanted. “He never really talked about what he did; he couldn’t,” said his father, Darold Larson. “But he would say things like that, and it made you know it was bothering him. He said he was being forced to do things that went against his moral compass.”
Under unrelenting stress, several former crew members said, people broke down. Drinking and divorce became common. Some left the operations floor in tears. Others attempted suicide. And the military failed to recognize the full impact. Despite hundreds of missions, Larson’s personnel file, under the heading “COMBAT SERVICE,” offers only a single word: “none.” Drone crew members said in interviews that although killing remotely is different from killing on the ground, it still carves deep scars.
Larson tried to cope with the trauma by using psychedelic drugs. That became another secret he had to keep. Eventually, the Air Force found out. He was charged with using and distributing illegal drugs and stripped of his flight status. His marriage fell apart, and he was put on trial, facing a possible prison term of more than 20 years.
“He was sobbing when he got the news. So disappointed. He wanted to fly,” his mother, Laura Larson, said in an interview. “But once he started, he enjoyed it. He really felt like he was doing something important.” More than 2,300 service members are currently assigned to drone crews. Early in the program, they said, missions seemed well run. Officials carefully chose their targets and took steps to minimize civilian deaths.
In another instance, he said, a fellow pilot was ordered to attack a suspected Islamic State group fighter who was pushing another man in a wheelchair on a busy city street. The strike killed one of the men; it also killed three passersby. “We were so isolated that I’m not sure anyone saw it,” he said. “The biggest tell is that very few people stayed in the field. They just couldn’t take it.”In her job as a police officer, Larson’s mother conducted stress debriefings after traumatic events. When officers in her department shot someone, they were required to take time off and meet with a psychologist. As part of the healing process, everyone present at the scene was required to sit down and talk through what had happened.
“After something like that, people can have unresolved, disruptive emotional reactions,” Chappelle said. “We would assume that’s unhealthy — having intrusive thoughts, intrusive memories. I call that healthy and normal. What do you call someone who is OK with it?” But crews said the teams were only modestly effective. The stigma of seeking help keeps many crew members away, and there is a perception that the teams are too focused on keeping crews flying to address the root causes of trauma. Indeed, a 2018 survey found that only 8% of drone operators used the teams, and two-thirds of those experiencing emotional distress did not.
The same pattern occurred twice more, he said, yet the squadron leadership did nothing to address what was seen as the customer’s mistakes. Two years later, Miller was near tears when he described the strikes in an interview at his home. “What we had done was murder, and no one seemed to notice,” he said. “We just were told to move on.”
When she and Larson had met in 2016, she said, he was already taking mushrooms once every few months, often with other pilots. He also took MDMA — known as ecstasy or molly — a few times a year. The drugs might have been illegal, but, he told her, they offered relief. “He would just say he had a very stressful job and he needed it,” she said. “And you could tell. For weeks after, he was more relaxed, more focused, more loving. It seemed therapeutic.
As the prosecution plodded forward over two years, Larson worked at the base gym and organized volunteer groups to do community service. He and his wife divorced. Struggling with his mental health, seeking productive ways to cope with the trauma, he read book after book on positive thinking and set up a special meditation room in his house, according to his girlfriend at the time, Becca Triano.
He loaded his Jeep with food and clothes and sped away, convinced that he was facing a long prison sentence, Triano said. Within hours, the Air Force had a warrant out for his arrest.
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