The father of a Lincolnshire solider who took his own life after serving in Afghanistan has slammed Prince Harry’s new memoir Spare, particularly the part where he discloses how many members of the Taliban he killed during his service.
Derek Hunt, the father of former solider Nathan Hunt, who took his own life in 2018 while still serving in the army, has been speaking to the BBC after the release of Prince Harry’s controversial new book Spare.
Within the book, Harry discusses his time as a soldier in Afghanistan, disclosing that he killed 25 Taliban members during his time at war.
Military figures have been quick to question whether it was correct of him to refer to people in war as “chess pieces”, a feeling which is shared by Derek.
Warrant Officer Nathan Hunt
“It makes me feel very sad,” Derek told BBC Look North. “I just can’t understand why he said those words. The fact that he saw the Taliban as chess pieces and not human beings, it’s not what we’re about as a military. For him to say they are just chess pieces, I found it a bit nauseating.”
“The fact that he seems to think by coming out and saying how many people he’d killed in Afghanistan, that it would somehow show other veterans that they need to speak out more openly if they are suffering from mental health issues – I just don’t know how that can be.
“People that have been in war zones, like my son, they want to forget, they don’t want to be reminded, and therefore I don’t see how it’s going to improve their wellbeing, it makes it worse and people relive it.”
Derek said he thinks his son Nathan would be “upset” by Harry’s comments, saying it is an “unwritten rule” in the military that you don’t discuss kills in war.
Prince Harry appeared on an American talk show to condemn the “dangerous spin” of these comments he made in the book, suggesting that the press made out that he was “boasting” rather than reflecting.
“Without a doubt, the most dangerous lie that they have told, is that I somehow boasted about the number of people I killed in Afghanistan,” he said on Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show.
“If I heard anyone boasting about that kind of thing, I would be angry. But it’s a lie.
“It’s really troubling and very disturbing that they can get away with it. My words are not dangerous – but the spin of my words are very dangerous to my family. That is a choice they’ve made.”
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