Harry’s War Memorial visit carries a sharper edge than most

April 15, 2026 — 7:30pm

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It has become a reflex to roll the eyes at Prince Harry and to file him away as a grievance-prone estranged royal with a Netflix deal and scores to settle.

There is, without doubt, plenty of material to work with. But as he stopped at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra on Wednesday for a moving Last Post ceremony – far away from the palace intrigue, tabloid hits and podcast cycles – the instinct to dismiss him outright felt not just lazy and tedious, but wrong.

Because on a question that matters – how we treat those we send to war – Harry has done something many governments, including our own, are still struggling to achieve.

The Invictus Games, launched by Harry in 2014, is often packaged as inspiration. It is all that, of course, but perhaps more importantly, it is a corrective.

It gives wounded and traumatised veterans........

© The Age