Confessions of a former US Air Force drone technician

Cian Westmoreland was 18 years old when he enlisted in the US Air Force.

Now 28, the former serviceman served with the 606 Air Control Squadron in Germany and the 73rd Expeditionary Air Control Squadron in Kandahar, Afghanistan, as an Air Force Technician.

He built the communications infrastructure for the US military's drone programme in Afghanistan, which, according to a 2015 report by The Intercept led to the deaths of hundreds of civilians.

In 2010, after four years in the military, he left the Air Force and joined other whistle-blowers speaking out about US drone policy. The group of technicians and operators wrote an open letter to US President Barack Obama.

Here, he tells his story in his own words:

My first day deployed in Kandahar was really strange. I walked from my tent to the little box that was my office and my boss was in there smiling. He turned to us and said: "We're killing bad guys now, boys."

I had this big lump in my throat and an uneasy stomach. When I read the Bible, I learned that we're not supposed to kill people, but here I was, building the infrastructure for people to do just that.

I built a data-relay system. I also did guard shift, where I saw kids begging for water and we weren't allowed to give it to them.

One day, I realised that if I didn't load the encryption each day, nothing would happen. Aircraft wouldn't be able to use this system to implement the drone programme.

They told us in the military: "No bombs without coms."

'All you hear is voices telling you what to do'

There's no physical danger from the enemy and that's what makes the job so tough.

If you're in danger, if someone is pointing a gun at you, you can justify - in your own mind - shooting someone.

But if you're sitting in Kandahar, you're confronted with a screen where you watch people day in, day out - you might even start to realise they're not bad people.

Some people start to feel a connection to the people they're pursuing and start to understand their humanity. That can be traumatising, and you have no one to talk to.

When you're in the drone programme, you're isolated - operators, analysts, leaders all work separately. All you hear is voices telling you what to do.

You're exposed to just a limited amount of the spectrum.

People like me, who speak out about the programme, feel we've been exposed to something we see as questionable. When you don't hit survival mode - that instantaneous fight or flight mode - you won't override your critical facilities, which can leave you with a huge moral dilemma and no one to talk to.

'Civilians died'

Quite a few civilians died because of what I was working on.

Whether you're a drone operator or a technician, you're still involved. When you look at the Nazi concentration camps, you had paper pushers everywhere who moved people through the lines. They didn't know what was going to happen, but, like now, there are a lot people of who are responsible for civilian deaths who are totally unaware of their role.