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Privacy NoticePrince Harry’s time with the armed forced is well known – the Duke Of Sussex spent 10 years in the Army from 2005, undertaking two operational tours of duty in Afghanistan and qualifying as an Apache Aircraft Commander, rising to the rank of Captain. Less well remembered is the ‘frustration’ he expressed in the role and how he was later criticised for seeming to ‘turn against’ the military. Back in 2013, then 28-year old Prince Harry gave interviews from the austere environment of Camp Bastion, Afghanistan – the heavily fortified military base thousands of miles from home, home to thousands of British military personnel, including the Prince himself. Sign up to OK!’s daily newsletter to get updates sent to your inbox for free He was on a 20-week tour, living in a shared room in an accommodation block made from shipping containers, eating and sleeping among regular recruits, and not afforded any special privileges.
The Duke Of Sussex spent 10 years in the Army from 2005
(Image: AFP/Getty Images)
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But Harry, now 39, expressed ‘dislike’ over the post, as he was was stuck in a camp with people he didn’t know. “For me it’s not that normal because I go into the cookhouse and everyone has a good old gawp, and that’s one thing that I dislike about being here,” he said. “Because there’s plenty of guys in there that have never met me, therefore look at me as Prince Harry and not as Captain Wales, which is frustrating. Which is probably another reason why I’d love to be out in the PBs [patrol bases], away from it all. It’s as normal as it’s going to get. I’m one of the guys. I don’t get treated any differently.” This certainly seemed to be the case. The Guardian reported how he was free to walk around the base, going to the gym, leaving his laundry to be done and eating in the canteen – albeit accompanied by his special protection officers.
Harry retrained to return to Afghanistan as an Apache helicopter pilot
(Image: WireImage)
Harry also spoke about how the experience could be ‘rewarding’, particularly when flying helicopters. “It is probably the most rewarding if you’re busy,” he said. “You can fly up to seven-and-a-half hours in a day. We did seven hours ten [minutes] the other day, which is exhausting. And other days you can be in and out of the tent eight or ten times doing half-an-hour here, 45 minutes there, etcetera. It’s definitely the one that has the most exciting end product, I suppose.” He ended his military career as captain in June 2015, after a secondment to the Australian military, and later described it as “the happiest times in my life”, telling friends he missed the army. But controversy was stoked with the release of Harry’s tell-all memoir Spare in early 2023, when he gave more detail about his time in Afghanistan. In the book, he revealed for the first time that he’d killed 25 enemy fighters in the region. “It wasn’t a statistic that filled me with pride but nor did it make me ashamed,” he said. “When I was plunged into the heat and confusion of battle, I didn’t think about those as 25 people. You can’t kill people if you see them as people. In truth, you can’t hurt people if you see them as people. They were chess pieces taken off the board, bad guys eliminated before they kill good guys. They trained me to ‘other’ them and they trained me well.”
Controversy was stoked by Harry’s memoir, Spare
A retired commanding officer accused Harry of ‘turning against’ his military family at the time. Speaking to Forces News, ex-Colonel Tim Collins said: “That’s not how you behave in the Army; it’s not how we think. He has badly let the side down. We don’t do notches on the rifle butt. We never did.” He continued: “Harry has now turned against the other family, the military, that once embraced him having trashed his birth family.” Responding to Prince Harry’s claim, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he would not comment on the appropriateness of it, adding that he was “enormously grateful to our armed forces”. Harry was later trolled for wearing his army medals after being stripped of his military titles in 2020 when he and wife Meghan Markle decided to step away from senior royal duties.Story SavedYou can find this story in  My Bookmarks.Or by navigating to the user icon in the top right.Follow OK! MagazineFacebookTwitterMore OnPrincePrince Harry
