Father of ex-soldier slams Prince Harry for 'boasting' about killing '25 Taliban fighters'
If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
LINCLON, ENGLAND: The bereaved father of a soldier who worked in Prince Harry's unit and even saved him "several times" says it was a "terrible mistake" to boast about killing 25 Taliban fighters in his forthcoming book 'Spare'. Derek Hunt, whose son Nathan served as a bomb-disposal expert with Harry's unit in 2008, said, "A lot of soldiers and veterans will find his comments about killing very upsetting—and perhaps [they] may even trigger some people into having flashbacks of their time in combat."
Harry defied a long-standing military custom by writing in the book and going into great detail about how he used his Apache helicopter gunship to shoot insurgents. He claimed that in order to justify the killing, he thought of the opposing combatants as pieces on a chessboard.
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It is believed that Nathan Hunt, a warrant officer in the Royal Engineers, often saved Harry's life by uncovering insurgent-buried roadside bombs. But after returning from the battle and receiving a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, he committed suicide in January 2018 while still enlisted in the army, a report in the Daily Mail mentions. Soon afterward, Harry wrote a heartfelt letter to Hunt and his wife, Maria, in which he said, "Grief can be a long and burdensome road." "Please know you and your family remain in my thoughts." Nathan Hunt joined the army at 16 and for 23 years served in many conflicts, before taking his own life in 2018, while working as a serving officer. Derek once said: “One of the traumatic experiences he had in Afghanistan was surviving a 107 rocket hit in a compound, as per the Lincolnite.
Hunt, also an army veteran, said his son would have been 'disappointed' by Harry's comments about killing insurgents, adding: "Many of those still serving or who are veterans would have spent years trying to forget about the fact that they have killed people." Hunt further says, "Taking someone's life is a very difficult thing to live with for most people – it's not something to boast about. That's why they never talk about it."
"My son Nathan never told us about what he had seen or done because he knew it would be upsetting for us and he didn't want to relive it." Hunt revealed about his son Nathan, adding, "He suffered from nightmares because of what he had witnessed and he also suffered from PTSD. Harry's boasts about killing people and removing them from the battlefield will not sit comfortably with a lot of people and will bring back a lot of bad memories." Derek noted, "I really can't understand why Harry has done this. It's thoughtless. He doesn't seem to have given it any consideration."
