LITTLE ROCK — The British Ministry of Defense revealed Monday that Prince Harry is returning from a five-month deployment in Afghanistan,where he served as an army Apache helicopter pilot. It did not immediately divulge his exact whereabouts. In interviews conducted in Afghanistan, the third in line to the British throne described feeling boredom, frustration and satisfaction during a tour that saw him fire at Taliban fighters on missions in support of ground troops. When asked whether he had killed from the cockpit, he said, “Yeah, so lots of people have.” He also spoke of his struggle to balance his job as an army officer with his royal role - and his relief at the chance to be “one of the guys.” “My father’s always trying to remind me about who I am and stuff like that,” said Harry, the younger son of Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana. “But it’s very easy to forget about who I am when I am in the army. Everyone’s wearing the same uniform and doing the same kind of thing.” Stationed at Camp Bastion, a sprawling British base in the southern Afghan desert, the28-year-old prince - known as Capt. Wales in the military - flew scores of missions as a co-pilot gunner, sometimes firing rockets and missiles at Taliban fighters. “Take a life to save a life. That’s what we revolve around, I suppose,” he said. “If there’s people trying to do bad stuff to our guys, then we’ll take them out of the game.”

Saxophone legend Branford Marsalis is headlining a jazz festival in Haiti. Marsalis arrived in the impoverished Caribbean nation Friday to perform several shows at the Port-au-Prince International Jazz Festival. Marsalis will also perform a private show today at the residence of U.S. Ambassador Pamela White. “It’s really cool to be here,” Marsalis, 52, said by telephone from an oceanfront hotel in Jacmel. “The people are beautiful to me.” The annual festival, now in its seventh year, started Friday and runs through Saturday. More than two dozen jazz musicians are coming from Mexico, Brazil, Spain, Cameroon and elsewhere. Marsalis’ trip was organized by the U.S. Embassy. He was supposed to perform in Haiti two years ago, but several days of rioting over a contested election scuttled those plans. The festival, however, went on a month later. The festival seeks to promote jazz in Haiti, increase understanding between the Haitian and American cultures and encourage tourism.

Front Section, Pages 2 on 01/22/2013