Harry's war
It’s not every day that you find yourself standing in line at a canteen salad bar – behind a prince. And yet for the British troops based in Camp Bastion, it hasn’t been such an oddity of late. For Prince Harry, who has just returned from a 20-week tour of Afghanistan, queued up at the ‘Super Kitchen’ for his breakfast, lunch and dinner just like anyone else. On one or two occasions, I even found myself waiting in the same line.
Now back in the UK, Prince Harry – or Captain Wales as he is known in the Army – has given an interview about his four months serving with 662 Squadron, 3 Regiment Army Air Corps. He was a co-pilot gunner in a £40m Apache helicopter and clearly served as ‘one of the guys’, with courage and distinction.
While he was in Afghanistan, details of his role were, quite rightly, kept to an absolute minimum. But from his base in sprawling Camp Bastion (it is roughly the size of Reading), Harry flew scores of missions over Helmand Province, targeting insurgents and providing vital air support for troops on the ground.
His unit also offered cover for the UK’s Chinook and Merlin helicopters, including the Chinooks in Camp Bastion’s Medical Emergency Response Team (MERT), the vital lifeline that transports injured soldiers from the battle eld to Bastion’s state-of-the-art hospital.
Harry was in Camp Bastion when insurgents breached the perimeter wall and killed two US Marines – and he celebrated both Christmas, when he received a parcel from his father containing a jar of Clarence House garden honey and a box of Cuban cigars, and his 28th birthday there. And all the while, he received no special treatment.
But his surprisingly candid recent revelations paint a far more vivid picture of his experiences in the Afghan war zone. He even admitted that he had killed for the first time, explaining that soldiers occasionally must ‘take a life to save a life’.
‘Lots of people have,’ he said. ‘The squadron’s been out here. Everyone’s fired a certain amount… If there’s people trying to do bad stuff to our guys, then we’ll take them out of the game.’
In his Christmas message to the troops, Prince Charles revealed that his letters from Harry were ‘rare and precious’. But then it seems Captain Wales did have a reasonable excuse for not writing quite as often as his father might have liked. Describing his workplace, in the cockpit of an Apache gunship, Harry said things were ‘pretty noisy’.
‘When you fire, you still get the cordite smell, which is bizarre. The whole floor vibrates and when you re a missile, the whole aircraft shudders a little bit.’
It certainly appears that Harry thrived in his role. ‘I’ve always wanted to fly an Ugly [the call-sign for the Apache helicopters],’ he revealed. ‘I don’t know where “Ugly” came from but it is a pretty ugly beast, and I think it’s very cool.’
Feet up in down time
And there’s no doubt that he’s willing to put himself in harm’s way. In fact, there were moments when he was frustrated at not being able to get his boots in the dust. ‘My choice would have been back out on the ground… That sounds quite spoilt when I’m standing in front of this thing – £45 million worth – but I think hopefully my friends and family back home know exactly what I’m talking about.
‘It is a weird reality, being stuck in Bastion. For me, I hate it, being stuck here. I’d much rather be out with the lads in a PB [patrol base].’
Even when you’re flying regular missions, Camp Bastion, a vast sprawl of tents and Portakabins, can be a mind-numbing place. In the middle of a featureless desert, 11,000 people call the camp home, including 4,000 British troops, 4,350 contractors and 2,000 civilians. The perimeter fence runs for 67km and there are 200km of roads. Six hundred flights come in and out of the camp daily, making it the fourth biggest UK-operated airport.
All of the troops at the base live, eat and work together. Most meals are taken at the ‘Super Kitchen’ – otherwise known by the rather prosaic name DFAC 1. It feeds 5,000 people every mealtime, during which a ton of potatoes are consumed, and employs 60 chefs.
In fact, it was here that Harry most felt like a prince, rather than just ‘one of the guys’. ‘For me it’s not normal because I go into the cookhouse and everyone has a good old gawp.’ Within his squadron, however, he was always just Captain Wales. As his colleague, Captain Simon Beattie, said: ‘It’s easy to put aside the fact he’s third in line to the throne. He’s a normal guy.’
Together, they would play computer games – football is a firm favourite – and, when on a Very High Readiness Shift, wait for the inevitable call to action. When the alarm sounded, it would take him 45 seconds to race to his helicopter. ‘Every time you run to the aircraft you get that adrenaline rush,’ he explained.
But what now? How will Harry settle back into British life? Well, he did apologise in the interview for the Vegas incident, during which he was pictured partying naked in a hotel room shortly before being deployed to Afghanistan.
‘I probably let myself down,’ he said. ‘I let my family down, I let other people down. But at the end of the day I was in a private area and there should be a certain amount of privacy.’ It was ‘a classic example of me probably being too much Army and not enough Prince.’
And he’s also extremely excited about becoming an uncle. ‘I’m thrilled for both of them… It’s about time.’
But it seems that, for now, the Army will remain the key feature of this remarkable young man’s life. ‘My father’s always trying to remind me about who I am and stuff like that. But it’s very easy to forget. Everyone’s wearing the same thing [in the Army] and doing the same kind of thing.’
We wish him well.
Now back in the UK, Prince Harry – or Captain Wales as he is known in the Army – has given an interview about his four months serving with 662 Squadron, 3 Regiment Army Air Corps. He was a co-pilot gunner in a £40m Apache helicopter and clearly served as ‘one of the guys’, with courage and distinction.
While he was in Afghanistan, details of his role were, quite rightly, kept to an absolute minimum. But from his base in sprawling Camp Bastion (it is roughly the size of Reading), Harry flew scores of missions over Helmand Province, targeting insurgents and providing vital air support for troops on the ground.
His unit also offered cover for the UK’s Chinook and Merlin helicopters, including the Chinooks in Camp Bastion’s Medical Emergency Response Team (MERT), the vital lifeline that transports injured soldiers from the battle eld to Bastion’s state-of-the-art hospital.
Harry was in Camp Bastion when insurgents breached the perimeter wall and killed two US Marines – and he celebrated both Christmas, when he received a parcel from his father containing a jar of Clarence House garden honey and a box of Cuban cigars, and his 28th birthday there. And all the while, he received no special treatment.
But his surprisingly candid recent revelations paint a far more vivid picture of his experiences in the Afghan war zone. He even admitted that he had killed for the first time, explaining that soldiers occasionally must ‘take a life to save a life’.
‘Lots of people have,’ he said. ‘The squadron’s been out here. Everyone’s fired a certain amount… If there’s people trying to do bad stuff to our guys, then we’ll take them out of the game.’
In his Christmas message to the troops, Prince Charles revealed that his letters from Harry were ‘rare and precious’. But then it seems Captain Wales did have a reasonable excuse for not writing quite as often as his father might have liked. Describing his workplace, in the cockpit of an Apache gunship, Harry said things were ‘pretty noisy’.
‘When you fire, you still get the cordite smell, which is bizarre. The whole floor vibrates and when you re a missile, the whole aircraft shudders a little bit.’
It certainly appears that Harry thrived in his role. ‘I’ve always wanted to fly an Ugly [the call-sign for the Apache helicopters],’ he revealed. ‘I don’t know where “Ugly” came from but it is a pretty ugly beast, and I think it’s very cool.’
Feet up in down timeAnd there’s no doubt that he’s willing to put himself in harm’s way. In fact, there were moments when he was frustrated at not being able to get his boots in the dust. ‘My choice would have been back out on the ground… That sounds quite spoilt when I’m standing in front of this thing – £45 million worth – but I think hopefully my friends and family back home know exactly what I’m talking about.
‘It is a weird reality, being stuck in Bastion. For me, I hate it, being stuck here. I’d much rather be out with the lads in a PB [patrol base].’
Even when you’re flying regular missions, Camp Bastion, a vast sprawl of tents and Portakabins, can be a mind-numbing place. In the middle of a featureless desert, 11,000 people call the camp home, including 4,000 British troops, 4,350 contractors and 2,000 civilians. The perimeter fence runs for 67km and there are 200km of roads. Six hundred flights come in and out of the camp daily, making it the fourth biggest UK-operated airport.
All of the troops at the base live, eat and work together. Most meals are taken at the ‘Super Kitchen’ – otherwise known by the rather prosaic name DFAC 1. It feeds 5,000 people every mealtime, during which a ton of potatoes are consumed, and employs 60 chefs.
In fact, it was here that Harry most felt like a prince, rather than just ‘one of the guys’. ‘For me it’s not normal because I go into the cookhouse and everyone has a good old gawp.’ Within his squadron, however, he was always just Captain Wales. As his colleague, Captain Simon Beattie, said: ‘It’s easy to put aside the fact he’s third in line to the throne. He’s a normal guy.’
Together, they would play computer games – football is a firm favourite – and, when on a Very High Readiness Shift, wait for the inevitable call to action. When the alarm sounded, it would take him 45 seconds to race to his helicopter. ‘Every time you run to the aircraft you get that adrenaline rush,’ he explained.
But what now? How will Harry settle back into British life? Well, he did apologise in the interview for the Vegas incident, during which he was pictured partying naked in a hotel room shortly before being deployed to Afghanistan.
‘I probably let myself down,’ he said. ‘I let my family down, I let other people down. But at the end of the day I was in a private area and there should be a certain amount of privacy.’ It was ‘a classic example of me probably being too much Army and not enough Prince.’
And he’s also extremely excited about becoming an uncle. ‘I’m thrilled for both of them… It’s about time.’
But it seems that, for now, the Army will remain the key feature of this remarkable young man’s life. ‘My father’s always trying to remind me about who I am and stuff like that. But it’s very easy to forget. Everyone’s wearing the same thing [in the Army] and doing the same kind of thing.’
We wish him well.