What It's Like to Be a Drone Pilot | The Story of Us

MORGAN FREEMAN: I was a little kid during World War II. And following the end of the war, of course, glory and bravery and patriotism instilled in me. And where do I go? Air Force. How'd you feel going in? So when I joined the military, I really did it to serve my country. But when I got to the drone base, I didn't know what I was doing. They didn't tell me anything until I got there. They put me in a small theater with about 25 other individuals. And then they played a montage video of drone strikes.

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And Sergeant, after it's done, he's standing at parade rest. He's like, your job is to kill people and break things. And I was just like, holy [bleep], what am I doing?

MORGAN FREEMAN: What is it like flying a drone?

BRANDON BRYANT: I was an MQ-1 Bravo Predator sensor operator. So I controlled the camera and the missiles. Like, that's my job. The pilot keeps the aircraft in the air. And basically, we support one another. If you look out the window, actually, if you look down there, that's kind of the same paradigm view that we had. If there's a target to be attacked, they're like, OK, this is what's going on. Or you're going to watch a person outside this guy's house. I mean, you're just waiting for an opportunity for them to get into a location, and you're going to shoot them.

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MORGAN FREEMAN: Do you know how many kills?

BRANDON BRYANT: 13 directly. My first shot, it was winter, mountains of Afghanistan. I killed three people.

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Two of them were obliterated into pieces. And one of them, watched him bleed out and then watched an infrared become the same color as the ground that he died on.

MORGAN FREEMAN: Is there remorse, or there was like consternation?

BRANDON BRYANT: I'm sitting there like, I just watched a man bleed out. I felt horrible. I wanted to cry. I felt-- you know, you feel, the "this is what I just did," the adrenaline rush. I mean, it was all sorts of weird-- weird feelings.