Prince Harry shot at Taliban insurgents during his time as an Army helicopter pilot in Afghanistan, he says.
The prince, whose four-month deployment to the country has just ended, spoke about his role as an Apache co-pilot gunner, and whether he had killed.
“Yeah, so lots of people have. The squadron’s been out here. Everyone’s fired a certain amount,” he said. “If there’s people trying to do bad stuff to our guys, then we’ll take them out of the game.”
Prince Harry left Afghanistan on Monday. News teams were allowed to interview him during his deployment, if they agreed to delay broadcast until he had left the country.
As well as discussing his role in Afghanistan, he talked about various other issues, including that he had “let my family down” when he was pictured naked in a Las Vegas hotel room last year.
He said this was “probably a classic example of me probably being too much Army and not enough prince.” But he added: “But at the end of the day I was in a private area and there should have been a certain amount of privacy that one should expect.”…
Prince Harry is the first member of the Royal Family to see active combat since his uncle, the Duke of York, fought in the Falklands War.
Captain Wales, as the prince is known in the military, arrived for his second tour as part of the 100-strong 662 Squadron, 3 Regiment, Army Air Corps in September. Within days of arriving, Camp Bastion was attacked by Taliban insurgents. Prince Harry was moved under guard to a secure location during the attack.
Prince Harry said: “Obviously the papers back home were like ‘this is all against me’. No-one really knows yet. But either way, this camp is in the middle of Afghanistan and it should be expected to be attacked at any point… and it was on my birthday, so it was a bit of a reality check.”
His first tour was cut short in 2008 after 10 weeks because a media blackout was broken. He was removed from Afghanistan in case he became a target.
Then he was part of ground forces, calling in air strikes against enemy positions. He was disappointed to be withdrawn, and determined to return to front-line combat.
He said: “My choice would have been back out on the ground with my regiment – that sounds quite spoilt when I’m standing in front of this [helicopter], £45 million worth, but hopefully my friends and family back home know exactly what I’m talking about.”
- BBC News
