Prince Harry wrote back to UK parents of Afghan Veteran, after parents reach out to Harry in a bid to have their son's war service memorialized

A newspaper article in the UK Mirror Newspaper praises Prince Harry for writing to the parents of a fallen army comrade, Nathan Hunt. Nathan's parents are fighting to have their son's name added to the UK national Armed Forces Memorial. They reached out to Prince Harry to see if he could help them.

Nathan served alongside Harry in 2008 in Helmand as part of a bomb search team in a desert reconnaissance unit while attached to the prince’s Household Cavalry regiment. Nathan sadly took his own life in 2018 after suffering from severe mental health problems thought to be linked to his military service.

Harry and Nathan

In his letter Prince Harry empathized with Nathan parents in their grief and expressed his wish that he could do more to help them in their bid to have their son's service memorialized. Harry suggested he could have done more had he been in the same role he once was. 

Nathan's parents, Maria and Derek Hunt, had met with Prince Harry and Meghan in 2018 during a ceremony to mark the 100th anniversary of the First World War. Mr. and Mrs. Hunt were touched by Prince Harry's letter with Mr. and Mrs. Hunt believing that Harry was sympathetic to their bid to try and get Nathan’s name onto the memorial. They feel that despite Harry now living in America that Harry still cares very much about the armed forces. 

Per the article in the Mirror Newspaper, the names of just 3 other soldiers who served in Afghanistan and who subsequently died after taking their own lives are on the memorial in Staffordshire. 

A psychiatric report produced after Nathan died said he had experienced “traumatic exposure” in Afghanistan and had “some elements of PTSD. But defence chiefs have ruled that on the balance of probabilities Nathan’s mental health and subsequent death was not linked to his 23 years of military service.

There is increasing demand for former soldiers who take their own lives after leaving the military,  to receive the same recognition for their service as those who are killed on the battlefield and / or who die from physical injuries.