When Prince Harry revealed in his new book, “Spare,” that he killed 25 Taliban fighters as an Apache helicopter pilot, he compared their deaths to “chess pieces removed from the board.” His comments have drawn ire from critics, such as Anas Haqqani, a member of the Haqqani Network, which is an Afghan Sunni Islamist militant organization and part of the Taliban government of Afghanistan. Haqqani shot back that those slain fighters “were not chess pieces, they were humans; they had families who were waiting for their return.” But others have questioned whether Prince Harry should have spoken about his body count at all.
Here, L. William Uhl, an assistant professor of philosophy at the United States Air Force Academy, provides insight on what airmen are taught and told when it comes to the sensitive topic of taking lives in the line of duty.
