Prince Harry reveals in his memoirs that he killed 25 ‘Taliban’ when he was employed as a helicopter pilot in Afghanistan, having to consider his targets as ‘chess pieces’, as learned in training for be able to shoot, The Telegraph reported on Thursday.
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The youngest son of King Charles III spent 10 years in the British Army, with two deployments to Afghanistan, in 2007-2008 for 10 weeks, then as a helicopter pilot in the south of the country from September 2012 to January 2013. He resigned in 2015 because he could not return to the field.
In his book “The Substitute” published next Tuesday, but some newspapers have already obtained a copy, the exiled prince in California recounts having learned as part of his training to kill enemies and that it was part of his job: “We shoot when necessary, take a life to save a life”.
According to the Telegraph, he says about his second deployment that he could count the number of his victims thanks to the cameras on board his Apache helicopter.
“It seemed essential to me not to be afraid of this number. So the number for me is 25. It is not a number that fills me with satisfaction, nor that embarrasses me,” writes the 38-year-old prince.
He says he viewed these kills as “chess pieces” removed from the game, as his training intended, because it is impossible to kill a target “if you consider it a person”.
“I had made it my goal from day one never to go to bed doubting that I had done the right thing, that I had shot Taliban and only Taliban, without civilians nearby,” he said. “I wanted to go back to Britain whole, but more so I wanted to go home with my conscience intact.”
According to the newspaper, the prince’s military involvement has made him a potential target of terrorists, hence the fears about his safety he has expressed since he left the monarchy in 2020 and lost his public protection.