The Crown Prince has given an interview to Forsvarsforum, a magazine for and about the Military.
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The interview stars with the headline; Crown Prince and Officer and before the interview we get a description of a military training camp in Northern Norway called Nordlys. The Crown Prince is a Major in the Army, but he has his military education in the Navy and is a commander there.
In the interview he talks about a gift he got from the Military for his 18th birthday, a four day ”dream day” program with the military, and how he experienced those days. ”Yes, I remember that well. It was both exciting and a lot of high speed. You don’t easily forget a trip in an F-16 or a high speed race in a Leopard tank. The Navy offered a MTB and a deep dive in a submarine.”
”These days gave a nice overview and small taste of the different military branches. As an eighteen year old you don’t know that much about the military.”
The Crown Prince did not take it lightly to get in a line of work where he could get in a situation where he had to take someone’s life, and that he has not changed his mind about that. ”It is healthy that people look at this as difficult question. But for me it was important to take care of the values we as a nation have built. To take risks, to lead a team or a boat into an area where the risks are great and where you may come in a situation where you have to give orders that put other people life’s in jeopardy, is to be deeply serious. In answer to whether he himself have considered an international service time, he answers; ”No, not directly, but if the 21 MTB squadron had been called into an international operation while I was in active duty, I would I have gone. At least if it was up to me, but there had maybe been others with an opinion on this. At this moment this is not an actual consideration.”
It is an interesting and insightful interview, but it is long and I’m not able to translate all of it, so I will leave it at that. I will add that he does mention Princess Ingrid Alexandra saying; “When the time comes, I will recommend to Ingrid Alexandra that she acquire knowledge and gets a deeper understanding of how the military works and what it stands for. But she will herself choose what she wants to do.”
