Years ago I was, like Prince Harry, an army officer. Since then I have spent a lot of time with long-serving professional soldiers. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anybody talk publicly about how many people they’ve killed.
Yet in his new book, the Duke of Sussex reportedly details that he flew on six missions that resulted in ‘the taking of human lives’ – something of which he says he is neither proud nor ashamed.
He apparently writes that, in war, soldiers do not usually know how many enemies they have killed. But:
In the era of Apaches and laptops [he was able to say] with exactness how many enemy combatants I had killed. And it seemed to me essential not to be afraid of that number. So my number is 25. It’s not a number that fills me with satisfaction, but nor does it embarrass me.
In fact, a lot of soldiers do know how many people they have killed.
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