By Tom Dare
A NEW BOOK shedding light on the top-secret life of a drone pilot in the U.S. military has been released, with a film version financed by Hollywood director Michael Bay set to begin production soon.
Drone Warrior: An Elite Soldier’s Inside Account of the Hunt for America’s Most Dangerous Enemies is a book following the nearly decade-long career of Brett Velicovich, a drone pilot with America’s most elite military unit, Delta Force.
Co-written by Pulitzer Prize winning former Wall Street Journal author Christopher S. Stewart, the book charts Velicovich’s career as he travelled across the world hunting down some of the United States’ most wanted terrorists.
“My speciality was high-level capture or kill missions,” he writes.
“My weapon was mainly Predator MQ-1 drones, equipped with two laser-guided AGM-114P Hellfire missiles. My job was to hunt down the most dangerous terrorists in the world. If I was chasing you, you never saw me. I was a shadow.
“My highly skilled team was called when a terrorist needed to be located. I have no doubt that we could find anyone in the world, no matter how hidden they are. I prided myself on tracking down the senior leaders who others considered ghosts.
“I was only 25-years-old, with enormous responsibility and people’s lives in my hands. I felt a lot of pressure resting on my shoulders.”
Featuring missions in Somalia, Burundi, Afghanistan and more, Drone Warrior pulls no punches in its portrayal of modern-day warfare, with Velicovich being particularly candid in his assessment of America’s military operations. The book, according to the U.S. government, contains more classified drone operations cleared for public release than any other account ever published.
And Drone Warrior is set to be adapted for the big screen later this year. Michael Bay’s production company, Bay Films, has already bought the rights to the film, and plan to put it into production along with Paramount. Screenwriter Andy Bellin, who penned the script for 2013 film Lovelace and the 2010 film Trust, has already been signed up to adapt the book for the big screen, though no director has been announced yet.
You can purchase the book on Amazon now: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Drone-Warrior-Soldiers-Americas-Dangerous/dp/0062693913/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1502121099&sr=8-1&keywords=drone+warrior
