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Topics: Celebrity, News, Prince Harry, World News
Rachel Lang
Topics: Celebrity, News, Prince Harry, World News
A war veteran who Prince Harry once hailed as a 'hero' has hit out after excerpts of the Duke of Sussex's memoir were made public.
The Royal shared new insights into his stints fighting the Taliban in his upcoming tell-all Spare.
"My [kill] number is 25," the Prince revealed, according to a copy obtained by The Guardian ahead of its January 10 release.
Ben McBean, a double amputee who lost an arm and a leg during the same conflict, called for the prince to keep details of his war experiences to himself.
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"Love you Prince Harry but you need to shut up! Makes you wonder about the people he’s hanging around with," McBean said on social media.
"If [they were] good people, somebody by now would have told him to stop."
The former Royal Marine isn't the only veteran to hit out at the Duke of Sussex for sharing grim details with the world.
British Army veteran Colonel Bob Stewart told the MailOnline he took serious issue with the Prince sharing his kill number.
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"I wonder why he is doing such things. Real soldiers tend to shy away," he said.
The MP for Beckhenham added that he found it odd that the Prince would want to 'boast' about the war.
"People I know don't boast about such things. They rather regret that they have had to do it."
Prince Harry, however, has written in his bombshell memoir that he has no regrets, explaining that he did not see his 25 successful kills as 'people'.
Instead, he saw the Afghani fighters as 'chess pieces' that had to be wiped from play.
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"It’s not a number that fills me with satisfaction, but nor does it embarrass me," the Prince wrote.
He also described the Taliban fighters he killed as 'baddies eliminated before they could kill goodies'.
Former SAS sergeant Chris Ryan described Harry's death tally as a 'very strange thing to announce'.
Another British politician, who spoke to the MailOnline on the condition of anonymity, also conveyed alarm over the Prince's wartime confessions.
"He is bringing everything into disrepute," the politician said, describing the Prince's behaviour as 'bonkers'.
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Prince Harry called in air strikes on his first tour in 2007-2008 and flew attack helicopters on his second stint, which went from 2012 to 2013.
Prince Harry's candid and somewhat emotionless admissions in Afghanistan mark the first time he has spoken publicly about his kills while on tour.