 |
|
Prince Harry does a systems check in the
cockpit of his Apache helicopter,
November 2, 2012, at Camp Bastion. Prince
Harry said he killed Taliban fighters
during his stint as a helicopter gunner
in Afghanistan, in comments that can be
reported after he completed his tour of
duty January 21, 2013. AFP
|
Britain's Prince Harry said he killed
Taliban fighters during his stint as a helicopter gunner in Afghanistan, in
comments that can be reported after he completed his tour of duty Monday.
Harry, third in line to the throne,
spent a 20-week posting flying scores of missions over the restive southern
Helmand Province in an Apache attack chopper.
The 28-year-old said Islamist
insurgents were put "out of the game" and described life in Britain's
sprawling Camp Bastion base, where he slept in a tent and a shipping container.
Asked by Britain's Press Association
if he had killed from the cockpit, Harry said: "Yeah, so lots of people
have.
"The squadron's been out here.
Everyone's fired a certain amount.
"Take a life to save a
life," he shrugged. "That's what we revolve around, I suppose.
"If there's people trying to do
bad stuff to our guys, then we'll take them out of the game.
"As soon as we're outside the
fence, we're in the thick of it.
"We fire when we have to... but
essentially we're more of a deterrent than anything else."
Harry spoke to reporters on three
occasions during his time in Afghanistan under an agreement which only allowed
the interviews to be released once he left the war zone.
The prince supported allied troops
fighting the Taliban at close quarters and accompanied British and US
helicopters on missions to evacuate casualties.
As co-pilot in the Apache, Harry was
in charge of the weapons systems in the two-man cockpit, firing Hellfire
air-to-surface missiles, rockets and a 30-millimetre gun.
"It's a joy for me because I'm
one of those people who loves playing PlayStation and Xbox, so with my thumbs I
like to think I'm probably quite useful," he said.
When on a shift requiring a high level
of readiness, Harry and the other three members of his squadron sprinted to
their helicopters in less than 45 seconds and were airborne within five minutes
of an alert.
They did not know their missions until
they were inside their £45-million ($71-million, 54-million-euro) aircraft.
Harry served in the 130-strong 662
Squadron, 3 Regiment Army Air Corps.
He insisted that his life in Camp
Bastion was "as normal as it's going to get", although the prince
admitted he was frustrated by staring from fellow troops he had not previously
met.
"I go into the cookhouse and
everyone has a good old gawp, and that's one thing that I dislike about being
here," he said.
Harry admitted he would rather be out
on the ground again in a small patrol base with the Household Cavalry regiment.
In his previous stint in Afghanistan,
before he trained as a pilot, he served 10 weeks in 2007-2008 coordinating air
attacks on the Taliban, although the deployment had to be hastily cut short
when a news blackout on his deployment was broken.
Of the major royal event in his
absence -- the announcement that his brother Prince William and wife Catherine
are expecting a baby in July -- Harry said he "can't wait to be an
uncle".
William, who flies a Royal Air Force
search and rescue helicopter in Wales, has been blocked from going to
Afghanistan because it is considered too dangerous to send the second in line
to the throne.
Harry said: "He'd love to be out
here. And, to be honest with you, I don't see why he couldn't.... No one knows
who's in the cockpit.
"Yes, you get shot at. But if the
guys who are doing the same job as us are being shot at on the ground, I don't
think there's anything wrong with us being shot at as well."
Harry also described his
"anger" at the media and accused newspapers of printing
"rubbish" and depriving him of a private life.
"All it does is upset me and
anger me that people can get away with writing the stuff they do," he told
ITV News.
"My father (Prince Charles)
always says don't read it, everyone says don't read it, because it's always
rubbish. I'm surprised how many in the UK actually read it."
He stressed that the public was
"guilty for buying the newspapers" but added he hoped "nobody
actually believes what they read, I certainly don't".
Harry traced his mistrust of the media
back to his mother's 1997 death in a Paris car crash after she was pursued by
photographers.
"I think it's fairly obvious how
far back it goes -- to when I was very small," he told the news network.
The prince, third-in-line to the
British throne, slammed newspapers for "forcing" his brother and
sister-in-law into revealing they were expecting a baby.
He also rubbished reports he had
written to Catherine from his Camp Bastion base.
"How any of the papers think that
they know the relationship between myself and my sister-in-law is quite
remarkable," he complained. "They're wrong, as always."
According to Harry, one of the
"great" things about being in the war-torn nation was that "it's
away from all the media back home, which is one of the real negative points
about the UK."
He highlighted the publication of nude
photographs of him in a Las Vegas hotel room taken shortly before his
five-month deployment as an example of press intrusion.
"I probably let myself down, I
let my family down, I let other people down," the prince said.
"But at the end of the day I was
in a private area and there should be a certain amount of privacy that one
should expect.
"I don't believe there is any
such thing as private life any more."
No comments:
Post a Comment