| Harry: A Prince With Dual Commitments |
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| Sunday, 30 April 2006 | ||||||||||
 If Prince Harry was looking a little tense at the Thanksgiving Service for Queen Elizabeth II's 80th birthday I have a good guess why.In his revealing 21st birthday interview given shortly after his arrival at Sandhurst, Prince Harry was asked how he planned to balance his commitment to helping Aids orphans in Lesotho with his commitments to the military. His answer was intriguing: "It's a difficult one, what I should be doing and what I want to be doing. It's hard."  Wanting to do something and having to do something are two very different things. But which commitment is it that Prince Harry is most set on? Carrying on his mother’s unfinished work, as he first said he would do in his 18th birthday interview, or following his childhood wish to be a real solider?Given his recent threat to leave the Army if he is not allowed to follow his unit into a war zone, and bearing in mind the things he said in his 21st birthday interview regarding his charity work, I'd say he wants to fulfil both commitments...but only if he is allowed to do so properly. And if he is not allowed to be a committed solider he probably feels he could accomplish better elsewhere. Prince Harry likely feels that the 43 long and demanding (but hey, he did manage to have some fun!) weeks he has devoted to his Sandhurst training was a waste of time if he is not allowed to make proper use of all that training; time he could have spent fulfilling his duty to charity. As he said in his birthday interview: "I can't wait for the day when I can forget about everything else and just concentrate on that [Aids orphans]. Well, not forget about everything else, but have that as the main priority, which it was before I went to Sandhurst." He also said, with more than a hint of determination: "There's no way I'm going to put myself through Sandhurst and then sit on my arse back home while my boys are out fighting for their country. That may sound very patriotic, but it's true. It's not the way anyone should really work." It is a sentiment fully shared by Prince William who said in a 2004 TV interview: "If I was to join the Army I'd want to go where my men went and I'd want to do what they did. I would not want to be kept back for being precious, or whatever, that's the last thing I'd want. It's the most humiliating thing and it would be something I'd find very awkward to live with." However, he did concede that his position would cause a rather unique problem for the military when he acknowledged that "talks would have to happen before I went anywhere." In this respect he is perhaps more circumspect than his younger brother who does not seem to regard his position as third-in-line to the throne as good reason to hold him back from the front lines. But neither Prince is the first royal to feel this way. In 1914 when the First World War — or The Great War as it was then known — broke out, Prince Edward (later King Edward VIII), like so many other young men, was eager to fight in the front lines with his unit in the Grenadier Guards. The British government had other ideas. Fearful of the disruption Britain and her Monarchy would suffer should the Prince of Wales be captured or killed, Edward was forbidden from serving as an active solider. Although banned from fighting, he did nevertheless manage to contribute to the war effort by visiting the ranks of soldiers, at home and abroad, like so many of his successors have done since. One may ask why was it then that Prince Andrew was allowed to fight in the Falklands War if his nephews are "too precious" to be allowed to do so themselves? Back in 1982 there was huge concern within Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's Government, as well as Palace circles, that the Queen's second son might be harmed in battle. Such was the anxiety it was even suggested he be removed from HMS Invincible, on which he served as a helicopter pilot. Aware that she wasn't the only mother facing the anxiety of watching a son go to war, the Queen, in her duel capacity as Head of The Armed Forces and a loving mother, intervened, telling her Ministers that Andrew should remain on board. Prince Andrew, now Duke of York, has recently spoken about how he faced the same dangers as every other serving soldier, saying: "I could have been sunk, I could have been shot down, you know. You have to take your run with everybody else and that is another aspect of that relationship the Queen has with the country, because the country then knows that there are, as it were, children or grandchildren of hers who are actually taking the same risks as everybody else."  That may be so, but at the time Andrew went to war the succession to the throne was secure. The Prince of Wales would not be fighting in the Falklands combat and the Princess of Wales was pregnant with the couple's first child.It's been reported this weekend that Prince Harry has been informed that he will not be allowed to fight alongside his men — as he continues to seem determined to do — until his older brother William has children. A royal source told the Sunday People: "If William marries his girlfriend Kate Middleton and she has a baby, Harry's chances of becoming King goes from remote to virtually zero. Then no mission will be out of bounds." It is a sad fact that Harry is seen as being more 'expendable' than William — surely a cruel and insensitive comment about a young man? But this is life in the Royal Family with the rule being that Prince William isn’t even allowed to fly in the same airplane as his father for the same reason: to assure the continuity and future of the monarchy. Not that there haven't been instances when all three Princes — Charles, William and Harry — have flown together, although this is increasingly rare and hugely frowned up by monarch and media alike. It's surely an odd thing, though, when a military engaged in war (in two different countries no less — Afghanistan and Iraq) refuses to send a perfectly healthy, capable, willing and much needed solider into conflict. But in spite of all the insistence that Cornet Wales (as he is now known) is treated like every other solider — and he has been until now — he is not like every other solider and neither is Prince William. For all Prince Harry's frustration with the military's current refusal to post him where he — and therefore his unit — could attract any more danger from terrorists, the extra caution shown by the higher echlons of the military is surely inarguable. Goodness knows, soldiers and civilians are already under enough danger from terrorists without the encouragement of such a high profile target as one or both of the world's most famous Royals. While there have been some bizarre suggestions to send military police into the field alongside Harry — presumably to act as bodyguards and possibly even 'take a bullet' for the Prince — it seems most likely that he will not be allowed to see frontline duty, full stop. In fact it's likely Prince Harry won’t get much farther then Germany — if that — and could even be given a (gulp) desk job. Given Prince Harry’s joke of not being able to turn on a computer much less stay awake should he work in an office I can’t see how he would find that a very satisfying career choice...much less a royal duty. In these modern times, royal duty most often translates to charitable works both at home and abroad. But that is not to say that the need for a Prince-as-warrior has died out, not least due to the fact that so many senior members of the Royal Family hold honorary positions within many branches of the UK’s armed forces. And Prince Harry, like many of his royal ancestors before him, is clearly enthusiastic about his service to the Military. But he has shown that he feels the same enthusiasm for charity, saying of his efforts in Lesotho: "I really think we could make a huge difference...just your presence there, they feel human, whereas some of the times they just think 'my life is a waste of time'." This is a feeling Prince Harry himself is sure to have felt from time to time while coming to grips with the responsibilities he has been given by birth and the restrictions he must balance them against. So Prince Harry has two duties to fulfil; one to the Sovereign's subjects and one to the Sovereign's Armed Forces. But where does Prince Harry see himself going? "Where I can see myself is doing as much as I can in the position that I've got."  But questions need to be asked: How much does he feel he can accomplish as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Blues and Royals if he is not permitted to act and do as other soldiers? In comparison, how much more good does he think he can accomplish acting as an ambassador for British and Commonwealth charities and interests? Naysayers — and Prince Harry has had far more of them than he deserves — will scoff that the only duties Harry is committed to is to wine, women and song (not to mention a bit of polo) but I disagree. As much as he enjoys being a solider, and as bravely as he wishes to serve his country in a time of war, I believe his true passion is charity work. There are still a few months of military training ahead for Prince Harry, meaning officials within the Ministry of Defence and Buckingham Palace still have much time to figure out what to do with a solider who is also third-in-line to the throne. And time too for Prince Harry to decide if a long career in the army is worth embarking upon, even if it doesn’t meet all of his expectations. It's time enough for some very tough decisions to be made. We can only wonder, though, whether Prince Harry more than anyone — including we the public, and the eager Press — isn't more desperate than anyone to see his older brother (the 'heir' to his 'spare') marry Kate and become a father. After all, only then would the pressure truly be off and Harry Windsor — rather than HRH Prince Henry Charles Albert David — would be able to freely follow his predecessors such as King Henry V into battle and live out his lifelong dream of serving as a very proud and able officer in Her Majesty's Armed Forces. Do you think Prince Harry should be allowed to fight on the frontline? Or would he be better off devoting his life to charity work, perhaps following in the footsteps of his late mother, Diana? We'd like to hear what you think, either via our Comments section below or The Royalist forum. Comment on this article
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