LONDON – Britain's Prince Harry completed a tour of duty of
Afghanistan this week, bringing to an end a four-month deployment as an
Apache helicopter pilot.
The Ministry of Defense revealed on
Monday that Harry, 28, who is known to his military colleagues simply as
Captain Wales, served as a helicopter co-pilot in Britain's 662
Squadron, 3 Regiment Army Air Corps.
He was stationed at Camp
Bastion, a British base located in Helmand province, in southern
Afghanistan. He flew scores of missions.
In media interviews
conducted in Afghanistan, Harry said that he had killed Taliban fighters
as part of missions in support of ground troops.
"Take a life to
save a life. That's what we revolve around, I suppose," he said. "If
there's people trying to do bad stuff to our guys, then we'll take them
out of the game."
Harry, third in line to the British throne,
graduated from the Sandhurst military academy in 2006. A year later he
was sent to Afghanistan to serve, but that tour had to be cut short
after a magazine and websites disclosed details of his whereabouts.
British media had agreed to a news blackout on security grounds.
Harry's
older brother, William, is a search-and-rescue pilot with the Royal Air
Force. He, too, has expressed a desire to serve on the front line, but
officials consider it too dangerous. Harry said he thought William
should be allowed to serve in combat.
Immediately
before his second deployment to Afghanistan, Harry was pictured
cavorting without clothes on in a Las Vegas hotel room. During
interviews this week, Harry said he had "probably let myself down, I let
my family down, I let other people down."
The British press on Tuesday ran a number of stories focusing on Harry's role in killing Taliban insurgents.
Source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/01/22/prince-harry-afghanistan/1854615/
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