Prince Harry isn’t just another blue blood. He served in the military for ten years, and now that he has left the service the prince is a dedicated advocate for wounded warriors.

Prince Harry joined the British Army in 2005 and served two tours in Afghanistan. In an interview on ABC’s Good Morning America, Prince Harry revealed that he joined the military in order to show the world that he wasn’t very different from regular British citizens and soldiers.

After spending a mere 10 weeks in combat, Prince Harry’s first tour in 2008 was brought to an abrupt end when he was ordered to return home. The last thing he wanted was to leave his men behind in dangerous territory while he flew home in comfort.

“I was broken,” Harry recalled. “I didn’t know what was going to happen to them and then suddenly I find myself on a plane that’s delayed because a Danish soldier’s coffin was being put onto the plane.”

On that trip, Prince Harry saw grievously wounded warriors for the first time in his service, and he was struck both by the severity of the wounds and the resilience of the veterans.

“And I suddenly thought to myself, ‘People don’t get to see this.’ I never in those 10 weeks, I never saw the injury part. I only heard about it,” Harry said. “That’s how it all started for me. There’s a reason why I’ve been in the Army and I would never have left the Army and not done this role. These people are role models and they need to be. It needs to be celebrated more amongst society.”

The prince founded the Invictus Games in 2013. This Paralympic competition brings together wounded warriors from all over the world to show off their athletic prowess. The games will take place this May in Orlando, Florida and air on ESPN. To promote the games, Prince Harry has visited veterans from across the globe, including some in the United States.

This year the games will focus on ‘invisible wounds’ such as post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Anybody who serves our country and puts their life on the line, and then can bring themselves back from an injury like that, deserves everything from every single one of us,” Prince Harry concluded.