What if Harry gets over there and they decide he's too big a risk to put in the field--you know, be the one to kill the infidel prince and you'll get 144 virgins in paradise---so they place him under tight security and make him fly a desk!

"But I want to be out their in the muck with the other fellows,  I want to carry a gun!"
"I'm afraid you'll have to settle for a stapler, your highness.  The milk and sugar for your elevenses is in little fridge below the counter."
;D

What if Harry gets over there and they decide he's too big a risk to put in the field--you know, be the one to kill the infidel prince and you'll get 144 virgins in paradise---so they place him under tight security and make him fly a desk!

"But I want to be out their in the muck with the other fellows,  I want to carry a gun!"
"I'm afraid you'll have to settle for a stapler, your highness.  The milk and sugar for your elevenses is in little fridge below the counter."
;D



No, he's serving on the front lines.  That's what all this back-and-forth was about.  He said he wasn't going to accept either not going to Iraq or going but not seeing combat.  He will be in the field with the rest of his unit. 

yeah, although it's a measure of how far we've come that it now seems commendable on the rare instance when someone doesn't use their privilege to get out of service, we commend them, when back in the day it was a matter of course that if you wanted honor you didn't use your wealth to get around it.

i was thinking about all quiet on the western front today and how it was that sense of getting glory that motivated people to go off to war, and experience all these horrifying things and commit all these horrifying acts. and it's us who commend that false glory, by praising people for enlisting. i wish we wouldn't, so much.

yeah, although it's a measure of how far we've come that it now seems commendable on the rare instance when someone doesn't use their privilege to get out of service, we commend them, when back in the day it was a matter of course that if you wanted honor you didn't use your wealth to get around it.


Couldn't agree with you more.  Although I can understand how someone might not want to serve.....I know I wouldn't want to.  I wouldn't want my life put on the line for something that a) makes no sense and b) should have been over a long time ago.  I know that I'm a woman and things are different for me, but if it wasn't.....I would feel the same way.

Not sure if this has been pointed out already in this thread: it's historically consistent for Harry to fight in the front lines: princes (and kings) have always done so.  I'm not sure why this is being treated as some big thing.

cuz rich people kinda stopped doing that.

i think part of it is war's gotten so industrialized and horrifying it's hard to actually find the old honor in combat that there used to be. when you're shelling each other with artillery from ten miles away you aren't really testing the mettle of your manhood anymore, so much as being a pawn in someone else's game.

Rich people, true; although the royals are undoubtedly rich, I doubt that has much influence in the way they define themselves.  The ethos of service, of being there to serve their country rather than to lead it (after all, it's been hundreds of years since a monarch led the country in any meaningful way) is very strong in the core of the Royal family (if you ignore all spouses younger than Prince Philip).

It has to be admitted that Harry probably needs something like this to grow up... best of luck to him.

Though you are right, of course: warfare has changed since the days when Edward I led the army from the front...