TEL AVIV—For eight hours a day, E., 21, sits in front of multiple computer screens, scanning high-resolution satellite images for suspicious objects or movements. As a decoder of Israel’s complex and often heavily civilian battlegrounds, he’s been critical in preventing the loss of life of soldiers on the ground in several different situations, his officers say.

For many people, combing through each millimeter of the same location from various angles would be tedious work—but E., who is on the autism spectrum, describes the job as relaxing, “like a hobby.”

E. (he requested his full name be withheld to comply with army protocol) is a corporal in the Israel Defense Force’s “Visual Intelligence Division,” otherwise known as Unit 9900, which counts dozens of Israelis on the autism spectrum among its members.

The relationship is a mutually beneficial one. For these young people, the unit is an opportunity to participate in a part of Israeli life that might otherwise be closed to them. And for the military, it’s an opportunity to harness the unique skill sets that often come with autism: extraordinary capacities for visual thinking and attention to detail, both of which lend themselves well to the highly specialized task of aerial analysis.

Geraldine Dawson, the director of the Duke Center for Autism and Brain Development, says that beginning early in life, autistic children may compensate for lagging social development by developing stronger-than-average perceptual skills, excelling in visually- and systematically-oriented activities like puzzles or drawings.

“People with autism often talk about thinking in pictures, rather than categorizing information according to language,” she explains. “They tend to think less in a holistic form, they’re integrating lots of pieces into a whole, and they’re much more likely to see the finer details of something.”

Those finer details are the nuts and bolts of the elite Unit 9900, whose soldiers act as eyes on the ground for highly sensitive operations, analyzing complex images delivered in real time from military satellites around the world.

But for many of the unit’s autistic soldiers, the more daunting challenge is learning to communicate and socialize with their peers.

E.—who, like many of the autistic soldiers in the unit, is considered “high functioning” and attended special-education program within a mainstream high school—says his adolescence was characterized by a general sense of “floating around,” both socially and academically. He had a hard time listening in class, though he performed well on tests. His sense of isolation was exacerbated by the special aide who accompanied him during the school day.

“It’s not fun at that age to have someone always...read more at The Atlantic