Posted by David on March 3, 2008, 2:46 pm
86.47.143.98
How boy soldier became a deft recruiting officer
Back from the front: Prince Harry seen en route to Afghanistan, he has returned to the UK after his location was revealed in an online blog
By MARY KENNY
Monday March 03 2008
For at least 40 years now -- yes, we could date it from the anti-Vietnam war protests of 1968 -- the soldiers' trade has been an unfashionable one.
The 'Peace, man, Peace' lobby upheld so powerfully by the likes of John Lennon and Bob Dylan has undoubtedly won the hearts and minds of the influential thinkers in the Western world and a generation has grown up to embrace a hippy pacifism against the cruelties and aggressions of war.
Who could be against the values of peace?
Did not Jesus Christ himself counsel his followers to "turn the other cheek" when offended?
And indeed the early Christians were all pacifists -- as Quakers remain to this day.
And yet, we also know by experience that if peace really obtained, the advantage would immediately go to tyrants and oppressors.
For tyrants and oppressors see "peace" as weakness, and a chance to enhance their iron dominance.
When the Second World War broke out in September 1939, there were at least 40 organisations in Britain clamouring for "peace" negotiations.
That meant, in effect, letting Hitler have what he wanted.
Eventually, when he had overrun virtually the entire Continent (small countries like the Netherlands and Belgium calling for "peace"), war had to be engaged.
So we shouldn't despise the necessity of defence.
Legitimate and properly disciplined armies there must always be, to keep sentinel against the rise of oppressors, and those who would destroy democracy.
And Prince Harry's 10 weeks of duty in Afghanistan -- brought swiftly to an end when his cover was blown by an American blogger -- has probably been among the best advertisement for army service that's been seen in years.
The British media did a deal: they would not break the story if the army, and Harry, would allow media access which could afterwards be reported.
And though Harry's tour was abridged by the American whistle-blower, it nevertheless provided a fascinating insight into this particular soldier's life in that inhospitable terrain once known as the North-West Frontier.
And it transpires, engagingly, that Harry is the quintessential simple, uncomplicated soldier by temperament.
He has a typical soldier's outlook on army service.
He prefers being "on operations" to the boredom of barrack life.
He likes the "bit of excitement" that soldiering provides.
He likes learning to use the gear -- the tanks and the heavy machine guns. And loves the bivouacking under the desert stars with his comrades.
This, above all, is the essence of the soldier's mentality -- the sense of solidarity with comrades. Harry defines military service as "looking out for your mates and your mates looking out for you." He admires "the bravery of the guys" he was with, as a team: and especially esteems his Gurkha comrades (every military man seems to admire the Nepalese Gurkha regiments).
Repeatedly, Harry emphasises the satisfying esprit de corps which has animated soldiers ever since the ancient Greeks devised the clever notion of bonding gay men together so they would fight all the more fiercely for their fellows.
He hated being kept back, initially, from service in the field, but, on the other hand, he was not about to put "the guys" in danger because of his presence and accident-of-birth special position.
But if he is now, personally, a target for Islamicist extremists -- he shrugs, so what? That's what a soldier has to do.
And in the tradition of the best soldiers, Harry is devoid of a political -- much less an intellectual -- analysis of what the Allied forces are doing in Afghanistan.
"It's not nice to drop bombs on people," he concedes. But "you do what you have to do to save your own guys."
That is how good soldiers are supposed to be.
Theirs not to reason why: the politicians make the political decisions, while the fighting men go off and carry out their military orders. No proper defence force could operate otherwise.
For 40 years, soldiering has had a negative press: the failures of discipline, the errors of judgment -- the "friendly fire" -- the dehumanising way in which undisciplined armies can massacre, and rape, innocent elements of the alleged enemy have all been highlighted.
And British regiments in Northern Ireland have not always distinguished themselves in military conduct.
Modern problems of "asymmetric warfare" -- when small guerrilla or terrorist groups can inflict disproportionate damage on a sophisticated military power -- and gender equality have also made soldiering a more complex endeavour.
And yet, most people probably admire a young man for accepting the discipline -- and the lousy rations -- of a soldier's life.
Harry is surely a better character for having done his military stint -- and hoping to do more -- than for hanging around Bouji's nightclub in London's South Kensington, knocking back absurdly expensive cocktails.
Harry's tour in Afghanistan has also had the effect of strengthening Prince Charles's sense of empathy with families of serving men, and especially with those who have lost husbands, sons and brothers.
Most touchingly of all, William assured his brother that their mother, Diana, would have been so proud of him.
"Hopefully," says Harry, "she would be.
"And maybe she's looking down on me and having a giggle when I do something stupid, too..."
Poignant, that.
- MARY KENNY
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