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The Sussexes

Prince Harry’s near death experience in Afghanistan

A new book recalls what Prince Harry’s life was like while deployed in Afghanistan.

First examined in Robert Jobson’s ‘Harry’s War: The True Story of the Soldier Prince’. Katie Nicholl’s new book heads back to Prince Harry’s near-death experience in Afghanistan.

Prince Harry toured with the Household Cavalry in 2007 in the Helmand province near the Pakistani border of the Garmsir area. Prince Harry’s commanding officer Mark Millford described the area as “about as dangerous as it can get.”

Captain Dickon Leigh-Wood recalled how dangerous their tour was when they almost drove over an IED, saying: “One of the vehicles in the column suddenly noticed something flick underneath, the tank in front and everyone was ordered to stop.”

He added on: “You automatically think, ‘This is gonna go off. This is it.’

“The previous vehicles, including Harry’s, had missed the pressure plate of an IED by about six inches. If any of us had gone over it, it would have been game over.”

Captain Leigh-Wood trained with Harry at Combermere Barracks, near Windsor but they two knew each other from when they attended Ludgrove prep school.

As previous reports of Prince Harry’s time in Afghanistan, Harry always kept his head down and pulled his part. He enjoyed the chance to be just another one of the boys and not receiving any special treatment. The book also claims he would travel into the village where he would drink chai with the elders.

His job was as a forward air controller and was tasked with studying what was dubbed as ‘Taliban TV’. The ‘Taliban TV’ was a live video feed from high-resolution cameras on unmanned drones and aircrafts.

 

 

The troops would beat the -26C temperatures at night while sleeping in trenches by four people huddling together in their sleeping bags.

However, Harry “just got on with it,” said Captain Leigh-Wood, “I never once heard him complain.”