From New York Times, I'm Michael Barrow. This is a daily.

Over the past five years, a series of investigations by the Times has revealed the degree to which

America's air wars, which were supposed to be the most precise in history, have instead

brought terror and tragedy to the civilians on the ground.

Today, my colleague, Dave Phillips, follows up on that reporting with a look at the

tool that the program has taken on the drone pilots who have carried it out.

It's Monday, May 9.

How did you first come to the story of Kevin Larson?

It was really out of the blue. Kevin Larson was this decorated drone pilot flying the

Reaper drone. He'd flown hundreds of missions, gotten a number of medals for it, and then

he was charged with drug possession and distribution and convicted. It was kind of a small case

and routine conviction, except for one thing. After the verdict came down, he took off

out of the courtroom, basically ran. A few days later, the police were chasing him. They

cornered him in a rural valley in the mountains of California, and he shot himself.

That day, I got a call from a military lawyer who I'd known for years, who had been in

the courtroom when this young officer took off and had learned about his death. What he

said to me was, you should try to look into this, because this isn't just a case of drug

use. I think it's something more. I know what unit he was in. There's just probably

a lot more to this young man's story than just that he was running from a pretty minor

conviction.

This guy calls you and says, there's something bigger here, and I think you should look

into it.

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