On Monday, Prince Harry got a medal from his Auntie Anne; recognition, with other members of his regiment, for his foreshortened service in Afghanistan. Today, with his brother, he'll host a fundraising military pageant at St Paul's complete with marching marines and an RAF flypast. Yesterday, by absolutely no coincidence, the Defence Secretary announced a funding package for Headley Court, the joint forces rehabilitation unit visited by the young princes last month with the massed ranks of the media in attendance.

The princes' profile, and their self-evident commitment to serving colleagues, is being used at full wattage to boost funds for those "inessentials" government resources still won't underwrite, like an on-site swimming pool. (Rather more convenient than bussing the halt, the lame and the limbless 10 miles to their single designated lane at the nearest local public baths).

The young royals are also being deployed, wittingly or otherwise, to keep public opinion on side as the two theatres in which our armed forces are doing daily battle continue to defy political predictions of a successful outcome. Iraq, where we are largely holed up in Basra airport, and where the proposed scaling-down of troop numbers has been indefinitely delayed. Afghanistan, where the terrain and the Taliban frustrate the best courageous efforts of the forces ranged against them.

Both wars, begun in haste and repented at bloodstained leisure, continue to produce more death than glory. They also produce devastating injuries, of which we hear rather less. Those who have given their lives in these intractable, apparently limitless conflicts are briefly visible as grieving relatives and friends honour their flag-draped coffins. Largely anonymous are those merely described as "injured" in the same incident, although the wounds in question may result in lifelong disability. Mostly out of sight, largely out of mind, are these thousands whom war has maimed, and whose lives will have been forever blighted in pursuit of aims and gains which only the more delusional apologists still believe possible. The sight of a politician at the dispatch box intoning regret for yet another series of lives lost or devastated must have some relatives longing for a half brick to fling at the TV. And not a few service chiefs, for that matter, whose private rage at their professionalism being sabotaged by political ineptitude is becoming ever more public.

The other day, a 52-year-old RAF reservist was buried by his inconsolable wife and five bonny daughters. You might well ask why, at that age and stage, he found himself blown up by a roadside device in Helmand province rather than engaged in occasional top-up training at UK camps.

Just as you might well wonder at the parade of barely-trained part-time US soldiers and airmen who find themselves sandblasted out of civilian life in increasing numbers to keep these wars on the road. Few of them will return unscathed, whether they suffer physical injury, psychological damage or the form of brain trauma now known to be a direct result of exposure to high velocity explosions. Combat Stress, the charity set up to deal with mental illness suffered by the UK armed forces, has had a 16% increase in referrals in the last year alone; 27% over the previous two years.

Currently they care for 184 Iraqi veterans and 29 from Afghanistan The youngest is just 21. Their recently refurbished facility in Ayrshire runs at a 90% occupancy rate. Forty percent of the people coming through the doors at their three UK facilities are diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome, which has a very specific cluster of symptoms. The rest suffer from anxiety, depression or the myriad conditions likely to afflict those subjected over a period to the iniquities of war zones.

Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised at the significant role in their rehabilitation played by charitable concerns, given the track record of the UK authorities in denying the existence of all manner of post-war debilities which are all too real to the people who contract them. And nobody should decry the efforts of those who try to maximise the charitable funds available to plug the gaps left by officialdom.

But somehow the heart sinks at the thought of the militaristic paraphernalia of pageants and princes on parade, all designed to foment a mood of national pride and gratitude. The gratitude is real enough. The sacrifices are real enough, both in our own ranks and the battalions of dead and wounded civilians. But if we truly want to reflect on what has been given for these ill-conceived wars and what has been lost in them, then the people on the march today should be an army of widows, fatherless children, and disabled service personnel.