From the moment he was thrown together with a 22-year-oldPrince Harryduring army training,Dean Stotthas lived something of a parallel life with his brother-in-arms.
Both Harry, now 36, and Stott, 44, channeled their difficult teenage years into successful military careers, including serving tours of Afghanistan. Since leaving the military, both have followed that service with helping veterans and others.
Now, Stott has even traveled in the footsteps of his friend — who invited him tohis weddingtoMeghan Markle(three years ago on Wednesday, in 2018) — to settle with his wife Alana, 38, and their kids Mollie, 9, and Tommy, 4, in California.
Stott first met Harry in August 2007 in North Yorkshire, England, when they were both enrolled in a Forward Air Controllers' course. When Harry — known in the military as Second Lieutenant Wales — asked a question in one early session, Stott couldn’t resist a quip.
“I sort of made a jokey comment, much to the dismay of the rest of the staff,” he tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “The sergeant major said, ‘You two are partnered up for the six weeks.’ "
Dean Stott at home in California.Christopher Fragapane
Dean Stott and Prince Harry at Kensington Palace in 2018.Courtesy Dean Tott
“I never saw Harry as a member of the royal family but as a soldier and officer,” Stott tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “I really got to see the Harry people haven’t seen. That’s how we bonded.”
For more on Dean Stott and his family and his friendship withPrince Harry, pick up a copy of PEOPLE, on newsstands on Friday.
Stott excelled in the military and even made the switch from soldier to paratrooper to the elite Special Boat Service (the U.K. version of the the Navy SEALS). But he was medically discharged from the forces after a freak parachute accident in April 2010.
“My leg got caught in a line above my head,” he recalls. “I was trying to kick my leg free before the parachute opened and I couldn’t. So, the parachute pulled my leg up over my head and to my right.” In intense pain, he managed to land on one active leg but had torn ligaments and muscles.
“We had an MRI scan the next day, my friends flew off to Afghanistan and I had to pick up my whole rehab process,” he says.
Alana, who he met in her native Aberdeen in 2009 (they wed in 2013), adds, “Unfortunately, they lost one of the guys in that [tour of Afghanistan] and I think Dean, it was almost like, ‘If I’d been there’ thought in his head. So that was when I started to see that almost that anger coming out of him — he was feeling guilty and resentful and he knew his [military] career was coming to an end.”
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In addition to raising money for the royals' Heads Together mental health campaign, something else was spurring him on: the need to get home in time for the wedding of Harry and Meghan on May 19, 2018. All along Stott’s cycling journey, Harry was sending his best wishes as he reached various landmarks. “Every time I got through a country, I would text [Harry] and let him know,” Stott recalls. “He would say, ‘Keep going,’ and send good motivational messages.”
There were challenges along the way: He contracted food poisoning twice, crashed his bike in Chile and got knocked off in Columbia. In Texas, he encountered “60 mph winds and tornadoes. I just played chess with mother nature through North America.”
Harry will be rooting for his friend once more.
source: people.com
