Prince Harrys trigger moment of seeing cost of war as he left Afghanistan

Prince Harry has opened up about the moment he saw the "real cost" of war.

The Duke of Sussex's latest documentary, Heart of Invictus, was released on Netflix today (Wednesday, August 30) detailing the lead-up to the 2022 Invictus Games, which saw injured war veteran athletes from around the world travel to the Netherlands to compete in a series of sporting events.

The six-part series also saw Prince, who served two terms in Afghanistan in his younger years, open up about the moment that "triggered" his understanding of war's devastating effects after he was pulled from the battlefield in 2011.

READ MORE: Prince Harry had 'no emotion' after Princess Diana's death before unleashing 'chaos'

"Somewhere after that there was an unraveling and the trigger to me was returning from Afghanistan," he said.

"As we took off, the curtain in front of me blew open and all you could see was the air hospital. Three young British soldiers all wrapped in plastic and their bodies in pieces.

"I saw what only people had talked about.

"That was the real trigger for, 'I'm now seeing the real cost of war.'"

"Not just those individuals, but their families, and what that would mean and how their lives were literally changed forever."

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Harry undertook two tours in Afghanistan over the course of his military career, first as a Forward Air Controller and then as an Apache Pilot.

The experience had a profound effect on him and he has spoken out about it in numerous bombshell interviews since stepping down as a working royal in 2020 alongside his wife, Meghan Markle.

In this latest release, the Prince said he felt an "unravelling" after coming back from the battlefield, which was made worse by having lost his mum, Princess Diana, years prior –and said 'no one' helped him.

In what appeared to be a subtle dig at his estranged royal relatives, he added: "The biggest struggle for me was that no one around me could really help.

"I didn't have that support structure that network or that expert advice to identify what was actually going on with me."

Harry added his mum's death at the age of 12 left him with "no emotions" and it took returning from war to begin processing those feelings.

"I was unable to cry, I was unable to feel," he told Invictus competitor Darrell Ling.

"And it wasn’t until later in my life, age 28, there was a circumstance that happened that the first few bubbles [of emotion] started coming out.

"Then suddenly it was like someone shook it and it just went pfft. Then it was chaos. My emotions were sprayed all over the wall everywhere I went and I was like, ‘How the hell do I contain this?’"

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