William wrote the foreword, but no word of Harry in army book
THE Duke of Sussex was left out of a Sandhurst alumni book that included a foreword written by Prince William.
In They Also Served: 200 People Who Trained At Sandhurst, author Vaughan Kent-payne explores “exceptional” graduates who have “gained recognition beyond” the Armed Forces.
However, while alumni mentioned include the Prince of Wales, Winston Churchill and Tim Peake, Prince Harry only receives a small mention in a passage about his brother.
It reads: “His status as a future king meant that he could not be deployed on operations like his younger brother, Harry.”
Ben Mcbean, a former Royal Marine and double amputee who inspired Prince Harry’s Invictus Games, accused the military of being “petty” over the exclusion.
“It’s a bit petty. He’s done enough to be in there,” he told The Daily Telegraph.
“He’s done more than most but people forget that. Afghanistan, twice. Pilot, set up Invictus Games.
“I just think he’s done enough to be in there. The reason he’s not is probably because he’s fallen out with his family. I’m pretty sure if he hadn’t he’d be in there.”
Prince Harry, 39, was accused of “betraying” the military and putting serving British soldiers and the greater public at risk, after claiming in his memoir, Spare, that he killed 25 Taliban insurgents.
He revealed how in 2012 he flew on six missions during his second tour in Afghanistan and killed 25 Taliban fighters, whom he viewed as “chess pieces removed from the board”.
Colonel Richard Kemp, a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, said the omission was likely a combination of the Prince having fallen out with members of his family and the comments over his tours in Afghanistan.
“Harry is a notable graduate of Sandhurst due to his royal status,” he said. “Beyond that he insisted on deploying to Afghanistan despite senior level opposition and did a great deal to help wounded veterans such as through the Invictus Games. I think the reasons he was omitted were his efforts to undermine the Royal family in recent years plus his comments about how he was trained in the army to see the enemy as less than human and pieces on the chess board which could easily be used to radicalise jihadists.”
He added: “I suspect the editors would have considered him as a suitable candidate and omitted him for those reasons, although with a cast of only 200 many even more notable Sandhurst alumni have also been left out.”
Kent-payne is the executive director of The Sandhurst Trust, the academy’s official charity. All proceeds from his book will go to the trust. Defence sources stressed the trust is “entirely separate” from the Sandhurst Academy.