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When it was revealed last week that Prince Harry, son of Charles and Diana, was serving on the front lines in Afghanistan, I felt proud of the kid. My thoughts on the War on Terror aside, I admire those who serve and especially those who serve that could have gotten out of it.
That’s Prince Harry — could have just signed up and rode a desk for two years. Maybe four. He won’t be king — that right belongs to the 23-year-old’s brother, William — and as nobility will never be Prime Minister or have any real political office. There really wasn’t a reason for him to go.
Maybe he went to show he’s just as capable of being a leader as his older brother and his scandal-ridden father. Perhaps it was purely an act of rebellion.
You know us redheads, we’ll do anything if we think it might piss off the right people.
Right now, however, Prince Harry going to war isn’t the big issue. It’s that he’s back. Unwillingly.
See, the Brits were trying to keep it under wraps. It wasn’t a publicity stunt or something to make the younger prince look good in the eyes of his countrymen. He went to serve his country and his country’s defense ministry was just fine with that.
Until someone blabbed about it. Oh no, our little Prince Harry is on the frontlines, he’s going to get killed.
Most of us want the war to be over and have the troops return safely. That doesn’t mean you pull one guy just because he’s a prince.
Do you think his fellow airmen — he was a cornet in the Royal Air Force and served as a forward air controller — gave two squats that they had a prince in their unit? Maybe if he acted like a spoiled brat. Brats, though, want people to know when they are doing something extraordinary.
Prince Harry, not so much. He only had four weeks left of deployment, too.
According to CNN, major news outlets had an agreement not to reveal the prince’s service until his deployment ended. Somebody screwed up.
In Harry’s words, it’s “a shame.”
You know what, I agree. Some small time blogger tried to be a big shot and put a lot of people in jeopardy. One reason you don’t let anyone know when you have someone like that on the front is because it makes him and everyone else around him a bigger target.
Keep it a secret and life goes on as well as it can in the middle of a war. Let the world know where the prince is serving and you might as well put a “hit us here” sign above your camp.
That’s why he had to be pulled. Not because he’s a spoiled brat who didn’t want to get sand down his pants. He was pulled because he became an unacceptable danger to his fellow airmen.
If not for that reason, he probably would have stayed.
Maybe the United Kingdom should start rethinking that line of succession thing. Prince Harry might be the right man for the throne, after all.
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