Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, accepts the Pat Tillman Award onstage at the 2024 ESPY Awards ceremony at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California, on July 11, 2024. (Photo: AFP)
LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) — Prince Harry received the Pat Tillman Service Award at ESPN’s Espy Awards on Thursday, saying he was accepting the award “as a voice for the Invictus Games Foundation and the thousands of veterans and service members who make these games possible.”
“This award isn’t mine, it’s theirs,” Harry said, but added that he welcomed the opportunity to showcase the resilience and achievements of Invictus participants and their families.
“Moments like these help us reach out to those who need Invictus most,” said the prince, the second son of Charles III, who was attending a sports awards ceremony in Los Angeles with his wife Meghan.
Harry, a former British Army captain who served two tours of duty in Afghanistan, founded the Invictus Games for wounded, injured and ill military, active duty and veterans.
The award is named after Pat Tillman, who gave up hope of success in the NFL to join the U.S. Army Rangers after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and was killed in Afghanistan in 2004 in what was later determined to be “friendly fire.”
Mr Tillman’s mother, Mary Tillman, criticised ESPN, the broadcaster that created the Espy awards, for choosing the prince as the winner, saying some in the veterans community do not have “the funds, the resources, the connections and the privilege that Prince Harry has”.
Prince Harry thanked Tillman’s widow, Marie, for attending the service and expressed his gratitude to “the Tillman family, especially Pat’s mother, Lady Mary Tillman.”
“Her advocacy for Pat’s legacy is very personal and something I respect.”
“The bond between a mother and a son is eternal and transcends the greatest loss,” said Prince Harry, who was 12 when his mother, Princess Diana, died in a car crash in 1997.
