Defence secretary accuses Prince Harry of ‘boasting’ about killing Taliban fighters
‘If you start talking about who did what, you’re letting down all those other people,’ says Ben Wallace
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Your support makes all the difference.The defence secretary has accused Prince Harry of “boasting” about the number of fighters he killed in Afghanistan.
Ben Wallace joins a string of veterans who have criticised the prince’s memoir claim that he killed 25 Taliban soldiers during his time in the Army.
The Duke of Sussex sparked anger globally after writing in his book about “precisely how many enemy combatants” he shot.
“So, my number is 25. It’s not a number that fills me with satisfaction, but nor does it embarrass me,” he wrote.
Harry dubbed allegations that in doing so he was boasting as a “dangerous lie”. But Mr Wallace has said killing enemies does not “make you a better person”.
The success of a soldier’s time in the forces was not measured by “who can shoot the most or who doesn’t shoot the most”, the defence secretary told LBC.
Explaining that it was his personal view, he added: “The armed forces is not about a tally. I frankly think boasting about tallies or talking about tallies … distorts the fact that the army is a team game, a team enterprise.
“It’s not about who can shoot the most or who doesn’t shoot the most – I think – it’s my personal view – if you start talking about who did what you’re letting down all those other people.”
Mr Wallace said it was up to individual former personnel members to make their own choices about what they want to talk about, but he would not have revealed tallies from when he was a captain in the Scots guards.
Anyone going over the top would be supported by “hundreds of people behind them” – whether in headquarters in Britain or in the Royal Logistic Corps who helped them get there, he said.
In Harry’s memoir Spare the prince said he did not think of the Taliban fighters as people but as “chess pieces” that had been taken off the board. After the backlash to the book, he said it had been “hurtful and challenging” seeing people claiming he was boasting.
Admiral Lord West, former head of the Royal Navy, had called the duke “very stupid” for giving details of his Taliban kills.
And retired commanding officer Tim Collins accused Harry of "turning against" his military family after "having trashed his birth family".
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