Prince Harry has opened up about his time in the military, including how many people he during two tours of war-torn Afghanistan.
The Duke of Sussex, now 40, served in the army for ten years which included two tours in central Asia.
In his bombshell 2023 memoir Spare, he didn’t hold back, diving into the gritty reality of war, his mindset on the battlefield, and the internal reckoning he still carries to this day.
Harry joined the UK military at age 19 in 2005, following a royal tradition observed by few members of the family, including Prince Andrew and his brother Prince William, who served in the RAF.
Initially slated for deployment in Iraq alongside the Blues and Royals regiment, the plan was scrapped due to serious safety concerns.
But Harry proved himself and eventually rose to the rank of lieutenant in the Household Cavalry. By 2008, he was on the front lines in Afghanistan — face to face with the Taliban.
In Spare, he wrote candidly about his experience: “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’s reflections in the book make it clear that while survival was paramount, he was equally driven by his conscience.
“I wanted to return to Britain with all my limbs, but more, I wanted to go home with my conscience intact,” he wrote.
The father-of-two, who left the military in 2015, shocked readers by revealing exactly how many lives he took during combat — a number he’s committed never to forget.
“I could always say precisely how many enemy combatants I’d killed,” he confessed. “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.”
The reveal triggered immediate controversy. Both the UK’s Ministry of Defence and then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak refused to comment on the prince’s admission. But Harry stood by his truth.
“I was part of six missions that ended in the taking of human life,” he wrote. “And they were all deemed justified… I deemed them the same.”
He added that he had to change the way he thought about death to carry out his duties as a soldier: “I was forced to change my mindset.”
One chilling strategy he described? Viewing enemy fighters not as people — but as game pieces.
Harry wrote that he thought of the people he killed as “chess pieces taken off the board,” a coping mechanism designed to keep him from “overthink[ing] his duties.”