It’s time for them all to come home.
Posted by Big John on February 29, 2008
Well it looks like a PR coup for the old Saxe-Coburg-Gotha clan with the ‘ginger spare’ being portrayed as the ‘hero of the hour’ for getting himself posted to Afghanistan.
Now that the media is free of it’s voluntary news ‘blackout’ after colluding with the Ministry of Defence, it is blaming those who leaked the news for putting the lives of Harry and his men in danger; when surely the only person who did that was Harry himself, when he threatened to resign his commission following the decision not to send him to Iraq, and when his special role in Afghanistan was dreamed up in an attempt to placate him.
It would seem from all the reports in the press that our warrior prince has been performing the important task of directing air strikes on Taliban positions. A very responsible job which Cornet Wales (his military rank and name) seems to have performed to his credit. So why all those carefully edited photos of him in armoured vehicles, ‘armed to the teeth’, patrolling on foot, firing a machine gun etc. etc. ?
Well it seems that as a reward for keeping silent, the press were promised loads of pictures once the news broke that Harry was in Helmand Province, which must have put him in greater danger as the Taliban now only had to look for a soldier surrounded by photographers and TV camera crews.
OK, so he has ‘done his bit’ for his grandma and his country, but so have many other young men who, unlike Harry, have to go on risking their lives for far longer than a few weeks, while he is now on his way back to a world of …
… polo, piss-ups, paparazzi and privilege .
John-Ward Leighton said
My point exactly, when the aristocracy plays at being commoners we have to remind them that when one is a true commoner there is no safety net.
Can you imagine the the hue and cry if this upper class twit had managed to get himself killed?
JWL
Terri said
I can always depend on you to “tell it like it is.” Listening to our US media….well, gosh, you’d think Harry walked on water. Ah yes…..the good ole royalty.
SilverTiger said
The question for me is whether the young oik has learnt anything and is a better person (and prince) as a result. I somehow doubt it but am willing to be pleasantly surprised.
Norman said
I can just hear the old Sergeant Major.
“Look ‘ere ‘arrey me old son, it’s Tali BAN, not F**k**G Tali O”.
Sorry to interject John.
It’s funny that you should mention ‘Tali O’, Norman, for when I was in the RAF I worked as a radar operator on ‘ground controlled interception’ and pilots would use the code words “Tally-ho!” when they sighted ‘enemy’ aircraft and were going in to attack them.