On the plus side, they aren’t getting shot at or taking indirect fire.
Via NY Post:
Sitting in a cool, dark room all day sipping sodas and energy drinks, watching people in faraway places die on screen can be psychologically brutalizing.
“A couple of years ago, the Air Force recognized that they are in a very high-stress career field,” said Maj. Alvi Azad, a psychiatrist assigned to the 497th Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group. “They have a 32% higher suicide rate than the rest of the Air Force. It’s the type of work they do. They’re deployed in place. Some of the things they see, it’s difficult. They can’t go home and talk about it. A lot of people want to talk.”
That is why Brooklyn native Azad, Air Force psychologist Technical Sgt. Robby Williams of Orlando, Fla., and nondenominational chaplain Capt. Michael Gorton of Eufaula, Okla., are here. They hold Top Secret security clearance and can listen if anyone in the 497th needs to talk.
Azad, Williams and Gorton constitute the 497th’s Airmen Resiliency Team, housed in a small suite of offices just down the hall from the highly classified Operations Floor. The Ops Floor is where dozens of mostly young imagery and intelligence analysts watch the war against ISIS and other operations amid the glow of dozens of computer screens day and night. Sunlight is a stranger.
Among the Resiliency Team’s tools are a therapy dog named Lucky, a golden retriever Azad acquired while doing a psychiatry fellowship at Yale. They also employ “Happy Lamps” — sunlights many analysts use to counteract the dim lighting conducive to watching screens.
“Airmen — people — need some kind of light to keep their circadian rhythm and avoid depression,” psychologist Williams explained.
Analysts who feel the need to discuss some disturbing sights they’ve seen in the war can walk down the hall after work or even during a break in their eight-hour shift. Many do.