Prince Harry Comforts Mom in New Video Marking Armed Forces Day ArticlePure

Prince Harry is showing support for a charity dedicated to helping bereaved military children before an important event in the U.K.

Scotty’s Little Soldiers released a new video on June 26 of Prince Harry’s sitdown with Nikki Scott, the charity’s founder, ahead of Armed Forces Day in the U.K. The event is commemorated annually in the U.K. on the last Saturday in June as an opportunity to support the military community, from active personnel to veterans, cadets and service families. 

Scotty’s Little Soldiers unveiled the emotional conversation between Harry and Scott about the moment she told her son that her husband, Corp. Lee Scott, was killed in Afghanistan to highlight the needs of bereaved military children.

Sitting across from the Duke of Sussex, 39, for “From Grief to Growth,” Scott recalled the harrowing day in July 2009 when she learned of her husband’s death. At the time, their son, Kai, was 5 and their daughter, Brooke, was 7 months old.

“It was the worst. How do you tell a 5-year-old this?” Scott recounted to Prince Harry. “Because I literally just shattered his world. He knew that life was never ever going to be the same,” she explained, wiping a tear.

“It sounds so corny, but I started to think, ‘How many other children have had a parent who’s died?’ ” Scott said in a clip of the sitdown, as the Duke of Sussex interjected, “There’s nothing corny about that.”

Prince Harry’s mother, Princess Diana, died when he was 12, and he has supported Scotty’s Little Soldiers after connecting with its founder at an event at Buckingham Palace in 2017. Scott established the charity after her husband died to help children who have experienced the death of a parent who served?in the British Armed Forces, and the organization now supports over 680 young people through various programs and a community network.

“What you’ve done is incredible, it is truly inspirational. I know that word gets thrown around a lot, but it is. And to see the difference in some of the kids here, Especially some of the kids I met previously in 2017, they’re different people,” Prince Harry told Scott. “You can see that they’re still processing their grief, but this community of support is everything. It’s amazing.” 

“He would have wanted that, I know for a fact,” Scott said about her husband, who served with the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment.

“Of course. It’s so easy as a kid to think or convince yourself…I wouldn’t know, I was 12,” Prince Harry said. “For you, for an adult, it seems to be the same. You convince yourself that the person you’ve lost, you need to be sad for as long as possible to prove to them that they’re missed. But then, there’s this realization of, ‘No, they must want me to be happy.’ ”

“What you’ve done now is not only transitioned to that with not only the memories… but then the smiles you put on all these kids’ faces. That’s the medicine. That’s the antidote to the loss,” Harry added.

“It’s about teaching young people to celebrate their parent’s lives,” said Scott.

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During the Duke of Sussex’s most recent visit to England in May, when he marked the 10th anniversary of the Invictus Games, he made a surprise appearance at a Scotty’s Little Soldiers event in his role as Global Ambassador during the trip before he traveled to Nigeria with his wife, Meghan Markle.

Prince Harry has dressed up as Spider-Man and sent a message as Santa Claus (among other endeavors) for Scotty’s Little Soldiers. Scott previously told PEOPLE that Harry, a former captain in the British Army, “really gets” its mission.

“It is such a positive thing for us. The fact that [Harry] was bereaved as a child and served in the military, the young people we support really resonate with him,” she told PEOPLE.