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Predator: The Remote-Control Air War Over Iraq and Afghanistan: A Pilot's Story
The Nintendo generation has taken to the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan where remotely controlled aircraft are killing America¹s enemies and saving American lives.
Matt J. Martin is considered a "top gun" in the world of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). For nearly four years, he has flown hundreds of missions on two warfronts in a new kind of combat that, until recently, was largely classified Top Secret. He and his fellow Predator pilots have been actively involved in virtually every facet of the War on Terror in Iraq and tracking Osama bin Laden; capturing top al-Qaeda leader al-Zarqawi; fighting with the U.S. Marines in Fallujah; and rescuing aid workers kidnapped in Afghanistan by the Taliban.
This is Matt J. Martin's story and that of his aircraft, the 27-foot long Predator.
Matt J. Martin is considered a "top gun" in the world of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). For nearly four years, he has flown hundreds of missions on two warfronts in a new kind of combat that, until recently, was largely classified Top Secret. He and his fellow Predator pilots have been actively involved in virtually every facet of the War on Terror in Iraq and tracking Osama bin Laden; capturing top al-Qaeda leader al-Zarqawi; fighting with the U.S. Marines in Fallujah; and rescuing aid workers kidnapped in Afghanistan by the Taliban.
This is Matt J. Martin's story and that of his aircraft, the 27-foot long Predator.
320 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 1, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
October 10, 2011
Like the machine gun in World War I, the tank and bomber in World War II, and the atomic bomb during the Cold War, the Predator drone is the defining weapon of the War on Terror. In Iraq and Afghanistan, both sides strike their blows at a distance, the terrorists with remotely detonated roadside bombs, and American forces with precision guided missiles from above.
Lt. Col Matt Martin takes us inside the hidden world of Predator operations. As both a knowledgeable practitioner and an amateur philosopher, he offers a very necessary counterpart to the speculators and pundits who have declared the Predator the ultimate weapon, or the first step towards illegal and inhumane automated warfare. The Predator, like all early stage technologies, is unstable and vulnerable to winds, clouds, and losing touch with the ground station. It is far from unmanned, every drone is operated by two pilots supported by immense teams of intel analysts and maintenance technicians.
Martin writes with candor and clarity about the misfortunes of war. He is responsible for the deaths of innocent civilians. You may or may not buy his rationalizations that war is random, and that no amount of planning can prevent a child from biking into the kill zone in the twenty seconds between pulling the trigger and missile impact, but he rightfully compares the Predator to messier alternative methods of doing the same, from commando raids to saturation bombing. It's strange to hear Martin talk about developing a cop's instincts for illegality when he's watching from a camera 10,000' above the battlefield; how much can an American learn about a foreign nation just from watching aerial video? But the results, and ability to track down insurgent mortar teams, speak for themselves. There are no battles in this new war, just alternating pairs of explosions.
Two caveats; Martin is an air force officer, and so not involved in the CIA's campaign of drone strikes in Pakistan, and the main action of the book takes place before 2008, so the successful anti-IED Task Force ODIN is also not covered. But with that in mind, this is a vital insider's take on a significant emerging weapons technology.
Lt. Col Matt Martin takes us inside the hidden world of Predator operations. As both a knowledgeable practitioner and an amateur philosopher, he offers a very necessary counterpart to the speculators and pundits who have declared the Predator the ultimate weapon, or the first step towards illegal and inhumane automated warfare. The Predator, like all early stage technologies, is unstable and vulnerable to winds, clouds, and losing touch with the ground station. It is far from unmanned, every drone is operated by two pilots supported by immense teams of intel analysts and maintenance technicians.
Martin writes with candor and clarity about the misfortunes of war. He is responsible for the deaths of innocent civilians. You may or may not buy his rationalizations that war is random, and that no amount of planning can prevent a child from biking into the kill zone in the twenty seconds between pulling the trigger and missile impact, but he rightfully compares the Predator to messier alternative methods of doing the same, from commando raids to saturation bombing. It's strange to hear Martin talk about developing a cop's instincts for illegality when he's watching from a camera 10,000' above the battlefield; how much can an American learn about a foreign nation just from watching aerial video? But the results, and ability to track down insurgent mortar teams, speak for themselves. There are no battles in this new war, just alternating pairs of explosions.
Two caveats; Martin is an air force officer, and so not involved in the CIA's campaign of drone strikes in Pakistan, and the main action of the book takes place before 2008, so the successful anti-IED Task Force ODIN is also not covered. But with that in mind, this is a vital insider's take on a significant emerging weapons technology.
May 24, 2013
Great book
May 26, 2017
What’s it like to be a regular joe guiding some of the deadliest aircraft in history while sitting in a chair half a world away from the carnage? With a title like Predator – The Remote-Control Air War over Iraq and Afghanistan: A Pilot’s Story, I wondered what more Matt J. Martin could possibly have to say. The answer is, a lot, including the emotional toll of seeing the after effects of the missiles he unleashed, sometimes with unforeseeable effects.
A self-described Midwestern “farm kid,” Martin grew up longing to fly airplanes like those that winged high over his father’s hayfields, transporting his imagination far away. But chance after chance to become a pilot slipped away. The first Iraqi war ended before he got his second lieutenant’s commission in the Air Force, via his university’s ROTC program, and flight training was closed to volunteers. Instead, he spent years in charge of an underground nuclear missile silo in Wyoming.
“The irony – while my dreams soared above the earth, my body was buried under the earth,” he writes.
Hoping at least to get in the air, he trained as a navigator and acquired a civilian commercial pilot’s license, only to learn his service obligation as a navigator would put him beyond the age of eligibility for flight training. However, he managed stints doing airborne reconnaissance over the southern “no fly” zone in Iraq, and over Afghanistan in the early days of the U.S.’s post-9/11 war there. Even marriage to the woman whose nickname, Ruby, would one day emblazon one of the world’s most advanced aircraft, couldn’t keep him from feeling dissatisfied with his career. Until. . .
“I was perusing an air force assignments website when I came across a notation soliciting Predator pilots. All I knew about Predator was that it was a remotely piloted aircraft…Not exactly a fighter, although it was armed. It sounded almost like science fiction…Little did I realize that the war for me was about to begin in a way I could never have contemplated.”
Flying a Predator, he found, was far different from flying manned aircraft. “Conventional airplanes were flown with direct mechanical or hydraulic systems.…The same inertia and acceleration that influenced the airplane also affected the pilot. He felt the gusts of wind, turbulence, a change in the aircraft’s relative position to the ground.…The Predator pilot had no such connections to his plane.”
One way or another, though, he was flying war planes. Sometimes they were armed, sometimes they only provided a set of eyes in the sky for ground forces. At times, Martin found himself participating closer to the fighting as he participated in the delicate operations of launching and landing the Predators.
Although the planes can be controlled in the air by pilots half a world away, they must currently be launched and landed from runways much closer to the territories they fly over. An exasperated Martin (whose tongue sometimes got him in trouble) describes his exasperation at fielding questions from visiting congressional members who failed to understand the planes’ limitations.
Martin is enthusiastic about the potential of Predator and its successor remotely piloted aircraft, and it seems inherently better (or less bad) to conduct a precise strike than to destroy an entire neighborhood when the object is to take out only small numbers of suspects. And he insists that there are more than enough safeguards to keep the pilots of such craft from excessive use of their deadly potential.
Still, he admits not being immune to the psychological stress of seeing the human faces of his targets – and the aftermath of strikes – in a way that pilots of conventional bombers never can. And there’s a continued thread, never quite expressed, about the ability of Predators and their like to win a war, given their precise targeting. Does taking out one or even a dozen enemy fighters at a time do enough to deter more from pouring in?
Even with the presumed wordcrafting help from Martin’s co-writer, journalist Charles W. Sasser, the book’s language is on the rough and ready side, alternating humor with horror in a way that doesn’t quite gel.
For the benefit of lay readers, the book also could have used a glossary of military terms. Although Martin and Sasser are careful to decode military acronyms on their first appearance, dozens of pages later I would again find myself at least momentarily puzzled by abbreviations such as GCS (ground control system), or multispectral targeting system (MTS).
Finally, though, the story Martin tells is timely enough, and engaging enough to follow even for those of us who can’t remember all the technical terms.
A self-described Midwestern “farm kid,” Martin grew up longing to fly airplanes like those that winged high over his father’s hayfields, transporting his imagination far away. But chance after chance to become a pilot slipped away. The first Iraqi war ended before he got his second lieutenant’s commission in the Air Force, via his university’s ROTC program, and flight training was closed to volunteers. Instead, he spent years in charge of an underground nuclear missile silo in Wyoming.
“The irony – while my dreams soared above the earth, my body was buried under the earth,” he writes.
Hoping at least to get in the air, he trained as a navigator and acquired a civilian commercial pilot’s license, only to learn his service obligation as a navigator would put him beyond the age of eligibility for flight training. However, he managed stints doing airborne reconnaissance over the southern “no fly” zone in Iraq, and over Afghanistan in the early days of the U.S.’s post-9/11 war there. Even marriage to the woman whose nickname, Ruby, would one day emblazon one of the world’s most advanced aircraft, couldn’t keep him from feeling dissatisfied with his career. Until. . .
“I was perusing an air force assignments website when I came across a notation soliciting Predator pilots. All I knew about Predator was that it was a remotely piloted aircraft…Not exactly a fighter, although it was armed. It sounded almost like science fiction…Little did I realize that the war for me was about to begin in a way I could never have contemplated.”
Flying a Predator, he found, was far different from flying manned aircraft. “Conventional airplanes were flown with direct mechanical or hydraulic systems.…The same inertia and acceleration that influenced the airplane also affected the pilot. He felt the gusts of wind, turbulence, a change in the aircraft’s relative position to the ground.…The Predator pilot had no such connections to his plane.”
One way or another, though, he was flying war planes. Sometimes they were armed, sometimes they only provided a set of eyes in the sky for ground forces. At times, Martin found himself participating closer to the fighting as he participated in the delicate operations of launching and landing the Predators.
Although the planes can be controlled in the air by pilots half a world away, they must currently be launched and landed from runways much closer to the territories they fly over. An exasperated Martin (whose tongue sometimes got him in trouble) describes his exasperation at fielding questions from visiting congressional members who failed to understand the planes’ limitations.
Martin is enthusiastic about the potential of Predator and its successor remotely piloted aircraft, and it seems inherently better (or less bad) to conduct a precise strike than to destroy an entire neighborhood when the object is to take out only small numbers of suspects. And he insists that there are more than enough safeguards to keep the pilots of such craft from excessive use of their deadly potential.
Still, he admits not being immune to the psychological stress of seeing the human faces of his targets – and the aftermath of strikes – in a way that pilots of conventional bombers never can. And there’s a continued thread, never quite expressed, about the ability of Predators and their like to win a war, given their precise targeting. Does taking out one or even a dozen enemy fighters at a time do enough to deter more from pouring in?
Even with the presumed wordcrafting help from Martin’s co-writer, journalist Charles W. Sasser, the book’s language is on the rough and ready side, alternating humor with horror in a way that doesn’t quite gel.
For the benefit of lay readers, the book also could have used a glossary of military terms. Although Martin and Sasser are careful to decode military acronyms on their first appearance, dozens of pages later I would again find myself at least momentarily puzzled by abbreviations such as GCS (ground control system), or multispectral targeting system (MTS).
Finally, though, the story Martin tells is timely enough, and engaging enough to follow even for those of us who can’t remember all the technical terms.
December 24, 2011
First-hand account of the change to unmanned aircraft in the US Air Force from the perspective of a Predator drone pilot/insider. The author highlights his journey from the missile silos of Wyoming, through the gulf war from Crete and onto his most recent challenge as a pioneer pilot of the Predator drones during both Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. Known to some as "the professor" for his inquisitive search for all things historical, the narration contains a pleasant sprinkling of history, philosophy, and global perspective, which adds to the baseline story regarding the factual changes to modern warfare.
I particularly like the personal stories regarding the changes that technology are causing to war-fighters, their family dynamics, and even chain-of-command structure as the military and the world continue to modernize. Having served in the USAF, worked in missile silos, and now in the field of robotics, I greatly enjoyed seeing the inside story on how pilots and commanders view these technological leaps. I am glad that Major Martin opens up about his internal ethical dilemmas, soul-searching, and justifications regarding both the use of military force in general and, specifically, the use of remote control drones from the comfort of Nevada. I only wish he went slightly further to reason about a time when not only our allies have such advanced drones.
Modern war really is changing; this month, Iran acquired (by still unknown means) a RQ-170, one of the most secretive of the US drone arsenal. I would love to hear Major Martin's view of this situation, who's fault it was, what can be done now, and where we go from here.
I particularly like the personal stories regarding the changes that technology are causing to war-fighters, their family dynamics, and even chain-of-command structure as the military and the world continue to modernize. Having served in the USAF, worked in missile silos, and now in the field of robotics, I greatly enjoyed seeing the inside story on how pilots and commanders view these technological leaps. I am glad that Major Martin opens up about his internal ethical dilemmas, soul-searching, and justifications regarding both the use of military force in general and, specifically, the use of remote control drones from the comfort of Nevada. I only wish he went slightly further to reason about a time when not only our allies have such advanced drones.
Modern war really is changing; this month, Iran acquired (by still unknown means) a RQ-170, one of the most secretive of the US drone arsenal. I would love to hear Major Martin's view of this situation, who's fault it was, what can be done now, and where we go from here.
December 26, 2011
A memoir with great depth and perception. The primary author, an Air Force officer, flew surveillance and combat missions by remote control in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He gives a clear and vivid picture of that experience, including painful self-examination about killing insurgents with missiles - an action he treated with the utmost seriousness, far from the stereotyped image of callous or reckless people wreaking wanton slaughter from far away - and some haunting moments when innocent civilians wandered into the wrong places when it was too late to stop or redirect the missile. I came away with the clear sense that the author is a sensitive man of principle, and that he went through a lot of courageous and difficult soul-searching in the process of concluding that this was indeed a moral and necessary way to fight the insurgents that were killing both local civilians and the troops of the U.S. and our allies. You may disagree with the author's political and moral conclusions, but if you read this book I don't believe you'll doubt his integrity or his desire to do the right thing.
October 4, 2011
Great, great memoir of a Predator pilot who began with the program in its infancy and helped build the strategy for drones during his experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. Martin is the perfect person to dispel the myth that drones are robots - rather, they are planes that are remote-piloted by humans. He offers a lot of insight into what waging war in the early years of the 21st century is like, especially with its inherent conflict of locale (he is here, the war is there), social media (dealing with family issues in real time during a war is undoubtedly hard), etc. Overall this is a great read and great war memoir.
March 1, 2013
This was a good book. Major Martin, a pilot that flew in the predator program since its very beginning, talks about how the program developed, successes and frustrations he experienced while flying the drone, and personal feelings during his service. He revisits his time at both Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada up to his progression to Balad Air Force in Iraq, flying drones while dangerously close to the enemy. This book does a good job highlighting the benefits of unmanned aircraft while helping to get rid of the assumptions that drone pilots are video gamers that enjoy killing enemies from halfway around the world.
July 14, 2011
A well balanced book on a relatively unknown subject. The author gives a great view of life as a Predator pilot and the unique issue fighting war in Iraq and Afghanistan from 7,000 mile away as well as rotation on the ground in the sand, from the professional hurdles to the personal issues.
This book also gives some great background on the conflicts as well as the general history of Iraq and Afghanistan and some of the key players. The authors thirst for knowledge and understanding comes through in his writing.
This book also gives some great background on the conflicts as well as the general history of Iraq and Afghanistan and some of the key players. The authors thirst for knowledge and understanding comes through in his writing.
February 23, 2016
A very enjoyable read. It was interesting and entertaining and, despite its sensitive nature was a very well-balanced look into the recent conflict in the Middle East. Martin gives a side of the story which is often ignored in the media and he does it in a passionate, yet compassionate way. Predator provides an insight into modern warfare and provides some clues as to the direction of the future. Read this if you have an interest in modern warfare and are open-minded enough to accept the complexity of the conflict.
June 26, 2011
I can't pretend to give you any sort of objective review of Predator* because it was written by my friend Matt. But I'm really glad I read it—we've talked about his day job, but when we get together we usually talk more about improv or beer, so there were plenty of stories here I didn't know at all. And they'll all be new stories to you, about a fascinating new facet of modern warfare.
* colon: The Remote-Control Air War over Iraq and Afghanistan: A Pilot's Story
* colon: The Remote-Control Air War over Iraq and Afghanistan: A Pilot's Story
January 23, 2012
I’ve always been interested in robotic warfare, particularly in the drone aircraft increasingly used by the U.S. military to fight terrorism. I found Matt Martin’s memoir of his time as a predator pilot to be both extremely interesting and highly readable. Overall I found the book fascinating, but his comments on the challenges of switching between flying the predator and then going home to his family to be particularly insightful.
January 2, 2012
The book gave good details and I found it to be both highly informative and entertaining at the same time. I think anyone with an interest in military techniques and technology will enjoy it as well, though it may be to dry in spots for those without a military background. For that reason only I gave it four stars instead of five.
March 22, 2014
Predator: by Matt Martin
While not a masterpiece of grammar and prose, this was a fantastic revelation of the development of the Predator system of warfare as seen by a man who walked the walk. I hurt with him on the frustration of the chain of command rules that hurt our war effort. Recommend it to anyone who wants to see a version of the new war in Hell.
While not a masterpiece of grammar and prose, this was a fantastic revelation of the development of the Predator system of warfare as seen by a man who walked the walk. I hurt with him on the frustration of the chain of command rules that hurt our war effort. Recommend it to anyone who wants to see a version of the new war in Hell.
October 31, 2013
An interesting look behind the scenes of unmanned combat.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews