Prince Harry once recalled the touching words of advice he was told by Prince Philip before he was deployed on a weeks-long tour of Afghanistan in 2007
Prince Harry once recalled the emotional words of advice he received from his grandfather, Prince Philip, before he was deployed on a weeks-long tour of Afghanistan. In April 2006, Harry was commissioned as an Army Officer, just months after joining the Blues and Royals.
The following year Harry was sent on active duty, heading off to begin a 10-week deployment in Afghanistan working as a forward air controller, coordinating airstrikes on Taliban positions. However, his tour came to an abrupt end and he was forced to fly home early, after international media revealed his location. In a documentary released in the months after Prince Philip’s death in 2021, Harry reflected on the wisdom his grandfather imparted on him before he left for his duties.
Harry said: “Going off to Afghanistan, he was very matter of fact and just said: ‘Make sure you come back alive’.” After returning from the war, the Duke of Sussex said it was Philip who gave him the space to talk about his service in Afghanistan.
Harry added: “Then when I came back, there wasn’t a deep level of discussion, more a case of: ‘Well you made it. How was it?’ That’s how he was. He was very much a listener, he sort of set the scene for you to be able to share as much as you wanted to share but he would never probe.”
Prince Philip’s candidness about the war perhaps came from the fact that the late Duke of Edinburgh served in the Royal Navy during World War II.
Philip first joined the Royal Navy in 1939, and was made one of the youngest first lieutenants at just 21 years old. His ship, the HMS Wallace, was part of the Allied invasion of Sicily – a pivotal moment in the war.
He held honorary titles in the Army, Navy, and Air Force and was appointed Admiral of the Sea Cadet Corps, Colonel-in-Chief of the Army Cadet Force and Air Commodore-in-Chief of the Air Training Corps. He also received pilot training with the RAF and continued flying until the late 1990s.
His grandson Prince Harry joined the military in 2005, and completed his officer training in April 2006, when he graduated from Sandhurst Military Academy.
Harry was then commissioned in a regiment within the Household Cavalry. His unit announced in 2006 that they were scheduled to be deployed in Iraq the following year, causing a huge public debate over the Prince’s safety.
Speaking of his desire to serve on the front lines, Harry said: “There’s no way I’m going to put myself through Sandhurst and then sit on my a*** back home while my boys are out fighting for their country.”
Despite the public discourse over his security, the Duke of Sussex was secretly deployed for ten weeks to the Helmand Province in Afghanistan in late 2007, assisting NATO forces as a forward air controller, before his tour was cut short when his location was exposed.
He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant with the Household Cavalry in April 2008, before the Duke of Sussex retrained as an Apache pilot in the Army Air Corps and returned to Afghanistan in 2012 as a helicopter co-pilot and gunner.
Harry then ended his military career at the rank of captain in June 2015, following a secondment to the Australian military. General Sir Nicholas Carter, the then-Chief of the General Staff, said that Harry had “achieved much in his 10 years as a soldier”.