Prince William spoke for us all when he said at the D-Day events: ‘It’s almost impossible to grasp the courage it would have taken to run into the fury of battle that day.’
At the deeply moving commemoration, William was wearing a clutch of medals and standing alongside world leaders, in place of his father King Charles who has had to ration his appearances because of his cancer treatment.
A moment to remember, as the baton was temporarily passed from father to son. And one that brought home to us Prince Harry’s absence more than ever.
How must Harry have felt observing the proceedings from the seclusion of his Californian mansion while his wife Meghan flogs jam for a living?
After all, Harry was the one the veterans loved, his natural camaraderie making it easy for him to joke and laugh with them. Unlike William, Harry knows what it is like to see active service and understands in part what these brave soldiers have been through. He, too, would have been proudly sporting his medals on this most momentous of days, had he not shattered his ties with his homeland, declaring war on his family in his memoir Spare.
Princes William, 41, and Prince Harry, 39, stand adrift from each other as they attend King Charles’s 75th birthday in November last year
Yet I couldn’t see a single post about the 80th anniversary of D-Day on the Sussexes’ website. Why nothing from him about the extraordinary courage of the veterans? Perhaps I missed any tribute he made, but his apparent silence only accentuates how he abandoned his past life, as well as his distance from family and country.
He must find the world a lonely place, looking on in sadness, I imagine, at the solemn events this week, no longer speaking to his brother and wondering whether his decision to shun so much of what he knows and loves was worth it. How tragic for him that, on June 6, Harry was missing in action.
