Detailing his most painful memories in his tell-all memoir, Spare, Prince Harry revealed intimate details about his private life, including his relationships with family members to his time touring in Afghanistan.
A former friend has suggested writing the book was a way for the Prince to “unburden” himself from traumas and deal with history.
Edward Charles Featherstone, a pseudonym chosen by Harry’s former friend, exclusively told the Mirror: “What I can say is that it’s well accepted that the best way to deal with PTSD is to speak about it and very often write about it. It’s in that way that you unburden yourself.”
He went on to add his friend “must have suffered Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)” following his time in Afghanistan.
In Harry’s book, he also described eliminating the targets as like removing “chess pieces” from a board. The Prince served in the British Army for 10 years, rising to the rank of captain, and has described his time in the military as his formative years.
Harry’s former friend, explained the nature of going to war, having also followed a similar career path and working as a combat helicopter pilot in the Air Force: “Taking that his infamous number of 25 Taliban insurgents is accurate, it’s my opinion that you can’t take 25 lives and be involved in the theatre of war and that not reach deep into your psyche and cause psychological disorder.”
Edward Charles Featherstone has also written a memoir detailing his journey from boarding school to being part of the Air Force.
However, in Spare, the Duke of Sussex wrote about how he watched each “kill” when he returned to base in Afghanistan and explained how it’s not possible to kill someone “if you see them as a person”.
The memoir was the first time the Duke had spoken of the number of people he was personally responsible for killing during his time in the southwest Asian country.
The Duke served in Afghanistan in 2008 as part of the Blues and Royals and again from 2012 to 2013 as part of the Army Air Corps.
However, he has been blasted by critics for claims made in Spare that he killed 25 Taliban fighters when he was deployed in the country.
For example Colonel Tim Collins, famous for his motivational speech prior to the 2003 invasion, of Iraq told Forces Network that the Duke had turned against the military family as well as his “birth family” by making the claims.
He said: “That’s not how you behave in the army; it’s not how we think.”
