Prince Harry shouldn’t go to Iraq
Matthew:
April 27th, 2007
Prince Harry should not be sent to front line service in Iraq. His presence there would endanger not only his regiment but the whole of the British presence. Moqtada al’Sadr’s Mehdi Army would place such a premium on his capture that not only the insurgents, but even the civilian population must be treated as possible kidnappers, attracted by the unthinkable ransoms organizations like Al-Qadir would be willing to pay. Should the Prince be captured, Britain would frantically deploy special forces and launch any number of perilous rescue attempts. Perilous not only to the forces involved, but to the Prince himself. If he was in the hands of panicked fundamentalists there would be a risk of his being executed. From an objective, tactical point of view his deployment is a non-starter.
This begs the question, what is the point of commissioning a Prince you can’t send into active service? Harry is understandably outraged at talk of his being kept behind. As a professional soldier, the idea of sitting at home while his men are sent into combat is nightmarish. So should we continue to require our royals to be trained in the military if we aren’t prepared to send them to front line?
May 2nd, 2007 at 4:14 am
There was a time in U.S. History when WE TOO believed that the children of the rich, the famous, and the powerful had an equal obligation to serve. All Four of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s sons served in World War II, and not in cushy desk jobs but in the thick of the action where they faced potential death or capture:
1) Despite physical ailments including flat feet, while wearing tennis shoes, James Roosevelt became an officer with a Marine Raider Battalion, landing behind enemy lines at Makin Island and elsewhere in the Pacific, earning both the Navy Cross and Silver Star.
2) Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., was a Naval Officer who served at in Operation Torch and later commanded a ship in the Pacific. He was awarded both a Silver Star and Purple Heart.
3) John Aspinwall Roosevelt, FDR’s youngest son, served as a Naval Officer aboard the air craft carrier USS Hornet.
4) Elliot Roosevelt, a colonel in the U.S. Army Air Force, flew a P-38 during the invasion of North Africa, and then flew photo-reconnaissance in support of the D-Day invasion at Normandy.