Updated on
Summary Prince Harry urged the US and the UK not to forget the wounded veterans of Afghan, Iraq wars.
Britains Prince Harry urged the United States and the United Kingdom on Monday not to forget the plight of wounded veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.Receiving a humanitarian leadership award from the Atlantic Council in Washington, Prince Harry recognizes wounded servicemen and women and those who paid the ultimate price, and calls on the U.S. and United Kingdom to care its veterans and their families.In a somber speech, the younger son of Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana, said: Sooner or later the coverage of them in the media will diminish or cease as coalition forces withdraw from Afghanistan. They will no longer be at the forefront of our minds.The 27-year-old prince was in the U.S. capital to accept an award for humanitarian service from the Atlantic Council.Prince Harry, who served in Afghanistan in 2008 and is now an Apache helicopter pilot, was once pilloried in the press as a playboy who clashed with paparazzi outside British nightclubs and dabbled in marijuana and underage drinking as a 17-year-old.Dressed in a black tuxedo, he shook hands with former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell who presented him with the councils Distinguished Humanitarian Leadership award.The prince and his elder brother, William, are both military officers. They also serve as cultural ambassadors for Britain and have worked with Walking with the Wounded, which raises funds to train and educate injured soldiers and help them return to work in civilian life.Prince Harrys remarks came as a U.S. appeals court reversed a ruling that would mandate the Department of Veterans Affairs to overhaul the way it cares for veterans with combat-related mental illness.Veterans groups say the several years that the administration often takes to process claims by former warriors suffering from post-traumatic-stress disorder and other problems has led to roughly 6,500 suicides a year.For these selfless people, it is after the guns have fallen silent, the din of battle quietened, that the real fight begins, a fight that may last for the rest of their lives, Prince Harry noted.
