Say Anything Blog

I’m not usually the most gracious of critics when it comes to Hollywood types - who often presume the mantle of a type of self-annoited unofficial royalty - or of genuine royalty, who can be the ultimate in pampered, spoiled, and out-of-touch-with-reality human beings.

But I have to step aside this time and give some respect where it is certainly due.

Britain’s Prince Harry paid the dues all young officers pay. And he wanted a role with his combat unit in Iraq. The media, of course, had a field day with this. The upshot of the media circus that followed was that there was no way to send him into combat with the soldiers he trained with without creating a deadly situation for himself - and them.

Every psycho that could be persuaded to strap a bomb to himself would have targeted him, every well trained terrorist unit would have done the same. He’d have been a great score for them, publicity-wise, a royal trophy, dead or alive, that they could have made much poltical hay of.

So….he didn’t get to deploy and do what he was trained to do.

But the British military had a little secret. For the past several weeks Prince Harry has been in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban with a front line unit. From all appearances he was doing quite well at it, too, and displayed the right attitude for it. A news photo shot of a ball hat he had on showed the logo on the back of the hat: We Do Bad Things To Bad People.

He’s been the guy who calls in airstrikes on enemy positions. No job for a weenie because it puts you right up front, close and personal with people who would dearly love to kill you because you are just absolutely ruining their day and their health records. He also went on foot patrol and engaged in combat.

And now he can’t do that anymore. Why? Because the media found out he was there.

We all know the story by now. The media, surprisingly led by the Drudge Report, found out he was in Afghanistan and blasted the news all over the world. And now the Brits have to pull him out because he has become what he so aptly describes as a “bullet magnet”. It doesn’t seem that he’s as worried about his own safety as much as for the safety of the soldiers around him. By default they share that danger. So he had to go.

Being a soldier, sailor, or marine is an honor. To be an officer or NCO and lead those people is an even greater honor. And to lead men in combat is the very epitome of the word. And that’s all this young officer wanted, to be able to lead men in combat. He could have found himself a very cushy job in some elite pretty regiment with ceremonial duties where the only blood that is drawn is the occasional paper cut, but that’s not what he desired.

He got what he wanted for a while, but thanks to our media, to whom a scoop is the most important thing, a story better than a secret, he can’t do it now. And that’s a damn shame. He’s a Prince and can have just about anything he wants except this. It’s not something I would expect the pacifists or the leftists or the whiners to understand, but it was such a simple thing that he can’t have.

He just wanted to be a soldier.