Drone warfare disrupts the generally understood experience of war, and drone operators’ distance from the battlefield has called into question the authenticity of their experiences as participants in conflict. This article examines the autobiographies of three US military drone operators, analysing how the narration is discursively oriented to particular spatial and ideological perspectives. It argues that the linguistic construction of point of view in each text reflects a dynamic and sometimes paradoxical relationship between drone operators and their distance from the battlefield. Observing the position and shifting of deictic centres, the analysis draws parallels between spatial perspective, ideology, and the social identities of drone operators and victims of drone strikes. It concludes by reflecting on the variety of discursive strategies employed across these texts, and considers this variation itself to be an emerging trend in the discourse of drone warfare.

无人机战争破坏了人们普遍理解的战争体验，无人机操作员与战场的距离使得他们作为冲突参与者的体验的真实性受到质疑。本文考察了三名美国军用无人机操作员的自传，分析了叙述是如何以特定的空间和意识形态视角进行话语导向的。它认为，每个文本中观点的语言结构反映了无人机操作员与他们与战场的距离之间的动态关系，有时甚至是矛盾的关系。通过观察指示中心的位置和移动，该分析在空间视角、意识形态以及无人机操作员和无人机袭击受害者的社会身份之间建立了相似之处。