'Arry the 'Ero

[spmetla]

I do believe that there is an increased risk by having a 'royal' in the front. While I'm sure that Harry knows what harm can come to him but the problem lies in the increased threat to the member of his unit. If he's in a certain area doing a particular job that makes everyone doing that job more likely to be targeted because all soldiers look pretty much alike.

Now do I think that he should be sent home because of his threat, no. I'm not a British taxpayer but imagine that spending all that money on training and equiping someone to be an officer in the army just to send them home is stupid. If they are going to do that then they shouldn't have let him join. It's bad for his unit to have to switch from Harry the garrison officer to a new guy they probably don't know well once they go abroad. And for morale I imagine that overall this will no go well with families of other British servicemen/women who will ask "why can't my family come home because of the threat."

Honestly I believe the command should keep him there. Let AQ try kill him, if it brings fighters out of their caves into an open fight its likely that those same AQ fighters will be killed. If he gets killed then may he RIP. It may not be fair to the members of his unit to get extra heat but then that is just how it is with 'celebrity' soldiers.

[Lemur]

He should stay in the operational theater? Now that every tribesman knows that a fortune in ransom is hiding under one of those helmets? Good lord, what an awful idea. You'd see British troopers kidnapped on the one-in-the-million chance that they might be the Prince, in hopes of a royal ransom. Forget the Taliban and Al Qaeda, the locals will be ready to grab every Briton in sight.

No, better to send him home, very publicly, and get the locals off the idea of a quick mega-buck.

Does anybody else think Drudge was a complete and total tool for breaking the embargo on this news?

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

There is no sane reason for him to do this, EMFM. Forget tradition, this guy could live like Britney Spears or Robert Downey Jr easily and this is what he chose?

You misunderstand me, and I suppose that is my fault, as I could've made it clearer.

I believe that it is admirable that he is not backing out of a tradition such as this, one he believes in, simply because of pressure and danger. It is admirable for this tradition to be carried on. I'm in support of his going, and I admire him for making that choice.

[HoreTore]

I'm not a British taxpayer but imagine that spending all that money on training and equiping someone to be an officer in the army just to send them home is stupid.

In most kingdoms, giving the royals officer training is part of their education as royals, just like they go to harvard etc. They're there because of tradition, not because they plan on going to war. Remember, they're usually the commander in chief, would look rather ridiculous to have a four-star general who has never seen a gun before....

[Fragony]

Of course... and that wasn't planned all along, oh no.

-Edit: So now it is indeed official: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7270743.stm

Would I lie to you

[Tribesman]

Does anybody else think Drudge was a complete and total tool for breaking the embargo on this news?

Does anyone not think that Drudge is a complete and total tool anyway ?

[KukriKhan]

His Dad was pretty cool. I used to have his RefDesk.com as my homepage, to catch the news in the morning. Matt just went to the dark side with sponsorships etc.

Yeah, he shouldn't have revealed. It doesn't even count as a scoop.

On the other hand, if I wanted to know what topics & news stories were going to appear in our Backroom, all I have to do is scan the DrudgeReport.

[Pannonian]

His Dad was pretty cool. I used to have his RefDesk.com as my homepage, to catch the news in the morning. Matt just went to the dark side with sponsorships etc.

Yeah, he shouldn't have revealed. It doesn't even count as a scoop.

On the other hand, if I wanted to know what topics & news stories were going to appear in our Backroom, all I have to do is scan the DrudgeReport.

Does he cover the latest in octosquid news?

[spmetla]

He should stay in the operational theater? Now that every tribesman knows that a fortune in ransom is hiding under one of those helmets? Good lord, what an awful idea. You'd see British troopers kidnapped on the one-in-the-million chance that they might be the Prince, in hopes of a royal ransom. Forget the Taliban and Al Qaeda, the locals will be ready to grab every Briton in sight.

No, better to send him home, very publicly, and get the locals off the idea of a quick mega-buck.

Does anybody else think Drudge was a complete and total tool for breaking the embargo on this news?

For some reason I just don't see British soldiers allowing themselves to be captured too easily. I doubt the local villagers would dare to try grab British soldiers unless perhaps its a local warlord or something and even then it'd take a lot of force to kidnap them, especially seeing as Harry's job is calling down air and artillery strikes. Bear in mind that in open fights the NATO forces usually have the upper hand and that the bigger threat to Harry would be the increased threat of IEDs or indirect fire getting him while off duty at the FOB with of course the ever present threat of snipers.
I'd say that kidnapping is far less likely to happen than him getting killed. I'd rather not have extra IEDs going off in the area that he's in on the off chance that they knock out his vehicle. I don't wish him harm or death but soldiering isn't easy or safe and that's the risk he volunteered to endure.

I hope that AQ and the Taliban are hard pressed enough that threatening to go after Harry specifically would not be able to carried out on the scale that would be needed. If anything I could see them just sending a few 'specialists' to put more pressure on the area Harry patrols instead of any grand scale kidnapping which I doubt they are capable of because otherwise we would have seen it happen to more than aid workers.


I think Drudge were 'complete wankers' for breaking this story.

and @ Horetore
I understand the aspect of tradition and the old role of the Royalty with the military and you make a fair enough point.

[KukriKhan]

Apparently it wasn't all drudgery and guard duty in Afghanistan:





Looks like he got that ancient Honda running after taking the pillow off the seat. :)

Lt. Windsor could do with a haircut.

[Husar]

Guess it won't be too hard to find him anyway if he has around a thousand paparazzi following him around all the time.

[caravel]

"That's it men keep going!, the Taliban are that way... I'm errr...right behind you!..."

[ZombieFriedNuts]

I thought it was hilarious that they actually sent him I thought they wouldn’t want to put him in danger.

Also does anyone know why the Prince Charles has what looks like a leak pined to his lapel

[Justiciar]

Because it was St. David's day, I believe. That or he's taken his obsession with the organic a tad too far.

[English assassin]

Hmm. Really not too sure what to make of this one. On the one hand, being willing, even keen, to do the job he has been (rapidly re-) trained to do is, well, OK. Certainly signing up to Sandhurst and wanting to be kept in Blighty would be a bit much.

On the other hand, the republican in me sees ordinary soldiers and officers going off to war not happily but willingly, and then along comes Cornet Wales the grinning war tourist, pulling strings, getting sent out for ten weeks, and now being hailed as if he was the first man ashore at D Day.

There's just a little bit of me that thinks Cornet Wales is seeing this as altogether too much about him, and not wanting to be known as the Prince who didn't go to Iraq, and not really anything to do with duty or his soldiers (certainly not his soldiers since they are in Iraq). Now he'll be back in Chelsea nightclubs putting it about with 21 year old sloanes (lucky blighter)

Next time we get these royal muppets wanting to play soldiers , can't we give them command of a fishery protection vessel somewhere where they really could do the job they had been trained to do? How about some "duty" this is boring and untelegenic? Charlie did a minsweeper after all.

[Ja'chyra]

I think some of you are just a bit harsh.

It looks to me as if pulled some strings just to get sent over in the first place and the fact that he was pulled wasn't down to him.

Good on him for going in the first place, cos let's face it he was probably the only one in the army with a choice. I also agree that now the whole world knows he's over there the risk is too great, not only to him but the guys round about him.

I don't it's beyond the realms of possibility that he'll be posted somewhere else though.

[Viking]

But why would anyone care...He's an average person; the only thing special about him is some ancient & silly royal title which he has done nothing to achieve but getting born and following the clichés.

[Geoffrey S]

He wanted to serve, kudos for him. I find it in poor taste that criticisms are labeled at him for having no chance of being in danger, it all being a publicity stunt... ultimately he didn't have to go, and as far as I'm concerned that garners him an equal amount of respect as with all those who choose to serve their country.

Find it quite amusing that army chiefs, while publicly saying it was clear that he couldn't serve, were secretly pulling strings to get him sent out. Is a fairly interesting and remarkably clear look at how the government handles disinformation.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

My first thought was that as a forward observor, they hadn't exactly stuck him in a dangerous spot. I mean, it's only Afghanistan -- it's not like he was put in a Canadian unit doing training with US airpower....


Seriously,


If you loathe the concept or Royalty, then all of the kerfluffle over this will gall you. I'm glad we have no royals locally, but don't particularly have any concern over the concept.


A son of privilege in his society chose to serve in a manner that brought much more risk to his life/health than not serving would have done. I assume most would agree that such an act does not consititue the worst possible choice of actions for a member of his society's privileged class. People snipe at the Bush twins for not "jinin'" up; they cannot snipe at this royal for the same reason...they'll need to find others.


Of course, once the story broke, the safety of his unit demanded his removal. Any AQ operative, any Talibani, and -- as Tribesman would probably agree -- a goodly damn proportion of our "allies" might take the opportunity to make a big windfall profit by taking him out or selling him to those who would. That area of the world doesn't exactly revel in the rule of law and niceties of international discourse. This -- once public -- put his whole unit in the cross-hairs.


Drudge is a gossip columnist and aims a good bit of his "reportage" at the least common denominator element. Once he'd secured the info, there was no hesitation about publishing it. This was a BAD journalistic decision -- it cannot be credibly argued that the importance of this news to an electorate or to the public's "right to know" outweighed the added risk to the human beings involved -- it's not as though Harry is vital to the free world. However, as has been noted, Drudge is NOT much of a journalist and can be relied upon to preference the prurient value of a subject over good taste or sound ethics. Occasionally, he does unearth something of importance; but even a blind squirrel stumbles over an acorn once in a while.

[LittleGrizzly]

This was a BAD journalistic decision -- it cannot be credibly argued that the importance of this news to an electorate or to the public's "right to know" outweighed the added risk to the human beings involved --

I agree completely, Im fairly sure the plan was to reveal Harrys service after he returned but to some people knowing a royal is in Afghanastan is far more important than peoples lives.

Harry joined up the army and i thought it was fairly pointless and a bit of a waste if he was going to be an unused solidier, but fair play to Harry, from what i heard he wanted to goto war, he didn't want special treatment as a royal.

I would say overall for the use we got out of 1 extra solidier (Harry) that it hasn't been worth everything thats been done to make it possible, but i don't think anyone can level criticism at Harry who joined up and wanted to serve his country.

[Viking]

but don't particularly have any concern over the concept.

Oh yes, I am sure you have concerns over tax money spent in the most ridiculous ways.

I would say overall for the use we got out of 1 extra solidier (Harry) that it hasn't been worth everything thats been done to make it possible, but i don't think anyone can level criticism at Harry who joined up and wanted to serve his country.

Kudos to him, but if he wasn't a royal he could've "served his country" in a much more efficient manner.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Oh yes, I am sure you have concerns over tax money spent in the most ridiculous ways.

How about the money they bring into the country through additional tourism?

[Viking]

How about the money they bring into the country through additional tourism?

Oh, I am sure they are interested in looking at the castle and not the royals themselves who they are not gonna see anyway.

[HoreTore]

How about the money they bring into the country through additional tourism?

They're all blown on new hats.