Prince Harry's Tour of Duty in Afghanistan: December 2007-February 2008


If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
Status
Not open for further replies.
The 'I don't like England much" line is getting a lot of mileage now that reuters and the AP have picked it up.
 
The 'I don't like England much" line is getting a lot of mileage now that reuters and the AP have picked it up.
Well, he is willing to give his blood for the country - there is no need to like the situation he has to live in there. I hope this quote will be received how it was meant: as saying that this prince of the blood prefers live as fighting soldier to the way he is harrassed at home while having all the privileges.
 
It's come across as he doesn't want to live here. He wants to be an 'ordinary person' not living in England. Not exactly glowing credentials for a Prince of the UK.
 
You are wrong there, the worst one is having limbs blown off or losing your independence due to massive injury!
Why is it an insult, every member of the forces who serves in a war zone is incredibly brave, it is just that the majority of people couldn't care less about soldier A.
how long dose long dose a soldier have to stay over seas to recieve a campgin ribbon? A poster on BBC website said that Harry would not get one because he had only been there fo 10 weeks is this true ?
 
I'm not sure. My second cousin served in Afghanistan and he's got his campaign medal but he was out there for a few months if I remember rightly. He got out of the army before Iraq.
 
It is disgusting that the media of this world are more concerned about making a few dollars that in moral and ethical responsibilities to civilization as a whole. Lt. Windsor could have easily avoided serving in a combat zone based upon the political ramifications of his title and position. I respect his desire to serve his country knowing he would face the same danger as his fellow officers and men. I believe Lt. Windsor's actions were a credit to both his country and his position within the same. It is sad he was not afforded the opportunity to complete his entire tour. However, the decision to withdraw him cannot be contested. The lives of his men should not be put at jeopardy simply because their commander is a royal.
 
It's come across as he doesn't want to live here. He wants to be an 'ordinary person' not living in England. Not exactly glowing credentials for a Prince of the UK.

But then Charles was blamed because he lived a life of a prince of the Uk some people considered to be "old-fashioned". Now the next generation is looking for their own place in society, their own chance to "create" themselves. Somehow I wish Harry had more contact with his cousins on his grandfather's side, I believe Felipe of Spain, Haakon of Norway and Frederick of Danmark could tell him a thing about combining the wish for an active officers life with adapting to the life of a prince. Okay, for all three of them their path was carved out the moment they were born, but still they were active, sucessful officers and had to find a solution/point of view between this position and their background.
 
Congrats to Harry on his good performance! HM, the Duke and the PoW must be bursting with pride.

Harry seemed more mature in his interviews from Afghanistan than we have seen before. I think it must have been a good experience for him to use his training and test his mettle as a "real" soldier.

And I thought it looked like a pretty scary place.

I don't know if everyone saw all the clips -- but I saw a part where he talked about the Queen telling him it was time to go to Afghanistan. I wonder if she called him up or if she arranged a meeting with him. I got the impression that HM was very excited for Harry to go. (I wonder what input she had in making this decision.)

And Harry was asked what he missed. And he said not much. He pretty much talked about the creature comforts, like music, food, etc. It was pretty striking IMO that he didn't say he missed his girlfriend.

I am really amazed that there wasn't more buzzing about this among us RFs. It seems incredible that a major Royal could go missing for 10 weeks and hardly any of us noticed.

On a trivial note: I loved his mustache! Very cute.
 
It's come across as he doesn't want to live here. He wants to be an 'ordinary person' not living in England. Not exactly glowing credentials for a Prince of the UK.

Well it's getting spun negatively which isn't surprising. One day he is the hero, the next day they need a more attack angle...especially now that the media outlets have to play catch up and also deal with the growing reports of how irresponsible it was to withhold the story. It's one big mess overall, the coverage is all over the place...:ermm:
 
This seems to be a repeating pattern - after the death of Diana, the media turned the focus of negativity from themselves onto the royal family. Seems to be happening again. I expect they're hoping that if they can get people riled up about what Harry said, or implied, or is said to have said, they'll forget that it was the media that screwed things up for Harry in the first place.
 
...... I expect they're hoping that if they can get people riled up about what Harry said, or implied, or is said to have said, they'll forget that it was the media that screwed things up for Harry in the first place.

Yesterday's Hero! Today? Unpatriotic! Only in the Press. They really should try to crawl out of the gutter for a change.
 
Last edited:
I read that article earlier today and I don't remember that quote being in it the first time. He is most likely being misquoted again for sensationalized media appeal.

I find it hard to believe that he would be risking his life fighting for a country that he really doesn't like all that much. He would certainly never disrespect his grandmother so much as to say it with such an negative meaning. Perhaps he meant that he preferred the relative anonimity of serving in Afghanistan (well as much as he was ever going to get anyway) to the constant viewing and judgement of his life in England.
 
He's back? Shoot! I was hoping my son, who's over there would have been able to meet him!
 
I don't understand why the heck the Taliban would be after him ..now that he's coming back...why? they shoulda done something years ago if he was sucha huge target. I wonder if they are going to be moving the rest of the soldiers that we're with him...I imagine so right?
 
Because now he's killed a few of them (or at least he has been somewhat involved in the outcome).
 
Hm...true. why didn't I think of that...I hope it doesn't continue like this forever....although I do think this was good for Harry,it's a shame it got cut short but what can you do I'm sure he's grateful for the time he did spend there..and I personally am very proud of him..seems to me most people with his status would rather sit all day then go out and help like that.
 
The whole story about Prince Harry's tour is really amusing. It is rather entertaining to read opinions of angry citizens of the stable European monarchy. It is naive to seek integrity and responsibility in mass media. As usually, mass media is subservient to interests of local governments, lobbyists, and other power brokers that manipulate the public opinion to their advantage. So it would be fair to say that freedom of press is a myth for the most part.
As for Matt Drudge, his web-site seems to post more or less accurate information. Well, it is not a bad thing, I believe.
 
Can't Harry Windsor. please have a couple months more

I was pleased to see some of the reports about Harry's Tour of honestly very muchwanted Duty, and he looks certainly to be very happy where he is.
For many reasons, I am glad that Her Majesty The Queen, made it possible for him to go. My only wish, could those reporters, not have shut it for a little bit more. I live in a totally different world, I always got into trouble, while my personality build up, is quite extroardinary different from other people, and how different I probably will never know, but that I could easily have come from a different Planet.... And my brain must be twisted the other way around, and upside down, with all the violence I stumbled into unexpectedly, and unaware of the bad world out there.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Press why blow the whistle now??? What was there to gain. All the Papers did in England, was ignite a Rally by CNN and myself, to blow every other reporter, back to their bosses with the message:" Sir we're drowning in footage, only we have not made it ourselves, and we keep driving lost there... Cannot find the encampement, or compound, somehow everything is not quite the way we always knew. Day by day, I get surprises, I deliberately put out of my mind years ago, insecurity, about what was happening to me. In seeing with my minds eye, and not knowing, that it is not quite common. When I was a lot younger then now, The first Time in 1981 (women mature at that age at a rate 6 out 10, like young men do at 27 Spiritually), and I could not really make heads or tails of it and I did not anticipate anything Icould recogninze, and I was not very sure of myelf.
As we alkl feek anxious about thye next generation getting control of the driver seat.
 
The Taliban may have had their suspitions, but I would imagine when the Australian rag first published the 'news' on Jan 15th and no other paper gave it headline ratings, they doubted the authenticity of the article.

I'd like to think that you're right, but I suspect that the Taliban's Intelligence (courtesy of Al Qaeda's great wealth and power) is quite as good, if not better, than the West's in some instances. I have absolutely no doubt that sympathisers in Australia passed the news on and that Harry's absence from the UK was duly checked out and confirmed. Incidentally, the news was first published on January 7th; 15th was the second article. That the story ran over two weeks is quite suspicious, to my mind. Someone, somewhere, wanted this story to break.

The editor of New Idea has said that the magazine received the story sans any indication that it was embargoed. Whether this was true or not, one might have thought that once she realised that no other media source in the world reported the same, that it would have given her pause. Instead, the story ran a second week. There is deliberate purpose behind this, to my suspicious mind.

I feel very sorry for the prince. By all accounts he's a good, young soldier, and has found a vocation. Reputedly, he's also a world-class horseman but was denied any opportunity to become a professional polo-player because it would provide the wrong image! We have, then, a young man whose two major talents are tramelled by out-dated concerns and considerations. Small wonder that he behaves with less than appropriate behaviour for a prince of the realm, from time to time: frustration for him must be completely overwhelming, occasionally. And it's in this vein that I discount Harry's outburst that he doesn't like England. Of course he doesn't mean it! and it's not an unusual reaction for any young man, peremptorily stopped from doing a responsible job of work of which he's proud and for which he's well-suited. Petulant? Yes. Understandable? Most certainly.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I don't understand why the heck the Taliban would be after him ..now that he's coming back...why? they shoulda done something years ago if he was sucha huge target. I wonder if they are going to be moving the rest of the soldiers that we're with him...I imagine so right?
I think mostly because taliban try to kill everyone against them someone important like harry would be big statement for them as they do not care. I think it honorable that he went with courage, because not even most regular ppl want to join army with war, but he should not have at all with risks for so many. Maybe he is not big target anywhere else but obvious he would be in war zone just as all soldiers are, but him more.
 
I read the article and what I noticed is that he never said he didn't love his country. He never said he didn't love his family. What he did go into detail about was the press and the oppressive way they intrude in his life. He was trained to be a soldier. He was prevented from serving in Iraq, and now he's being prevented from serving out his time on this tour. He simply wants to be a normal man and soldier serving his Queen and Country like all the rest of them regardless of who his family is.

I certainly didn't take it as his saying he didn't like England....I took it that he was speaking of the microscopic harassment he knows he's going to be put through when he returns from being yanked out instead of being allowed to complete his tour as originally planned. The "England" he's referring to is the one controlled by the Media.
 
I'd like to think that you're right, but I suspect that the Taliban's Intelligence (courtesy of Al Qaeda's great wealth and power) is quite as good, if not better, than the West's in some instances. I have absolutely no doubt that sympathisers in Australia passed the news on and that Harry's absence from the UK was duly checked out and confirmed. Incidentally, the news was first published on January 7th; 15th was the second article. That the story ran over two weeks is quite suspicious, to my mind. Someone, somewhere, wanted this story to break.

You are quite possibly right about the date but the date being widely reported here is Jan 15th.:flowers:

The Royal United Services are reporting that many of the Taliban chat rooms they listen in on, are full of chatter, because they had been unaware of his confirmed presence in Afghanistan.

As I said, I feel really sorry for him and the men he was serving with, normally they get a couple of weeks to integrate a replacement, this would have been denied them. :flowers:
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I agree Skydragon.
I can see the risk he took by being there. The taliban doesn't care who they kill if they can make a statement.We learned that on 911.
Lexi
 
I think mostly because taliban try to kill everyone against them someone important like harry would be big statement for them as they do not care. I think it honorable that he went with courage, because not even most regular ppl want to join army with war, but he should not have at all with risks for so many. Maybe he is not big target anywhere else but obvious he would be in war zone just as all soldiers are, but him more.

Yah your right. I wonder when he'll be back.
 
Last edited:
I doubt very seriously that Harry said anything of the kind about not liking the UK. The Daily Mail is hardly reputable if I remember correctly, and in any case its unlikely in the extreme that a person who was raised in this particular royal family, and who has the history with the media that this family does, and in particular Wills and Harry, would open his mouth with a statement like that even if it were the way he feels, which I very much doubt.

Those people gullible enough to believe it deserve the garbage that happens to them.
 
It wasn't the Daily Mail. It was the Telegraph and there's a video of Harry saying he doesn't actually like living in the UK. Add this to his statements about not wanting to a Prince and just wanting to be 'ordinary', I'd say there's quite a substantial argument for the sudden switch in public feeling. The sentiment coming through on TV and radio here is, "If he doesn't like it, give it all up and go away".
 
This seems to be a repeating pattern - after the death of Diana, the media turned the focus of negativity from themselves onto the royal family. Seems to be happening again. I expect they're hoping that if they can get people riled up about what Harry said, or implied, or is said to have said, they'll forget that it was the media that screwed things up for Harry in the first place.

Exactly, Elspeth!
 
I suddenly had a brain wave I don't buy New Idea but made an exception recently as it had an engagement story in it of my favourite Australian singer I have just checked and it was the same issue as the Harry story!!It is dated January 12th but they always date it a week ahead so the story came out on January 5th
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom