The Duke of Sussex served in the British Army for 10 years from 2005
In 2005, Prince Harry made the decision to join the British Army, serving for 10 years and enduring two tours of war-torn Afghanistan.
It would take almost two decades for the royal to lift the lid on his harrowing experience, which he eventually did in his controversial 2023 memoir, Spare.
In the autobiography, the 40-year-old prince also spoke specifically about the lives he’d ended during his missions in the Middle East, revealing how many there were, and why he still makes a point of remembering the specific digit.
Harry was only 19 when he joined the UK military, following in the footsteps of only a handful of royal family members – including Prince Andrew and his brother Prince William, who served in the RAF.
The youngest of King Charles III’s sons, he was initially deployed to fight alongside his Blues and Royals comrades in Iraq, though this decision was later rebuked following concerns for the prince’s safety.
After proving himself in the field, Harry eventually rose to the rank of lieutenant with the Household Cavalry, and in 2008, he was sent to fight on the front line in Afghanistan for the first time. There, he came face-to-face with members of the Taliban.
Writing of his experience in his memoir, the prince began: “Afghanistan was a war of mistakes, a war of enormous collateral damage—thousands of innocents killed and maimed, and that always haunted us.
“So my goal from the day I arrived was never to go to bed doubting that I’d done the right thing, that my targets had been correct, that I was firing on Taliban and only Taliban, no civilians nearby.”
Harry went on to confess: “I wanted to return to Britain with all my limbs, but more, I wanted to go home with my conscience intact.”
The father-of-two – who resigned from the forces in 2015 – went on to reveal the total of individuals he killed during warfare, as well as the reason he’ll never allow himself to forget the specific digit.
“I could always say precisely how many enemy combatants I’d killed,” he began.
“And I felt it vital never to shy away from that number. Among the many things I learned in the Army, accountability was near the top of the list.
“So, my number: Twenty-five.”
At the time, Harry’s comments sparked controversy, with both The Ministry of Defence and then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak declining to comment.
Elsewhere in the book, Harry claimed he felt neither proud nor ashamed of the killings, and was forced to change his mindset when it came to the value of human life while enlisted.
“I was part of six missions that ended in the taking of human life,” he penned. “And they were all deemed justified… I deemed them the same.”
The prince also confessed to thinking of his enemies on the battlefield as ‘chess pieces taken off the board’, so as not to overthink his duties.
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