h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The difficulty is that the boy is essentially 'the thick one', and he's in the armed forces at a time whhen he might be expected to go into a 'war' zone.

Charles (hardly MENSA material himself was given command of a minesweeper and sent to Iceland, that hotbed of sea-mines. Andrew was bright enough to qualify as a combat pilot, but the Argies weren't concentrating on choppers.

Ideally, I suspect the Forces would have liked to have put the ginger-one in the RAF, where he would have been at considerably less danger from enemy fire. Unfortunately, his dyslexia and his general lack of a brain means he's only ever going to make the infantry.

I didn't know he was dyslexic. Does his father suffer from the samething?....just googled it and yes, he does!!!!

I think'lack of brains' is unfair, thinking about, especially as I know some very intelligent squaddies.

But he ain't the sharpest tool in the box, I'm thinking.

I'm really glad you said that, otherwise you and me could've been having a little chat.

Surely there's something else less controversial he could do if he wants to be an action man. What about being a firefighter?

"Of course there is. Stop allowing the Royal Family to pretend to be members of the armed forces.

Prince Andrew went to the Falklands, a proper shooty war against a proper army and everything. He specifically said in an interview later that if he hadn't gone, his position as a member of the navy would have been untenable.

Unfortunately for Harry, that's exactly the position he's in now. He's either in the army properly, or he's pretending to be. And if he's pretending to be, his position is untenable. It's time to admit that in this media-obsessed age, the royals simply cannot any longer play at soldiers, because if they do, they may have to actually work as soldiers, and we all know that just ain't gonna happen. Whoever permitted Harry to join a unit with potential frontline exposure needs sacking."

I agree. The royal family are infamously stuck in their ways and overly-concerned about things the rest of the country couldn't care less about. That the male side of the family should always join the armed forces seems to be one of these even though, as has been demonstrated time and again, no one is remotely willing to put them in any sort of real danger and so they can't ever be real members of the service. The Prince Harry thing demonstrates how absurd this is. Harry was trained with a unit and is now a part of that unit as an "ordinary" soldier and yet he can't actually be sent into a combat zone because he's not and never will be an ordinary soldier. Winston Churchill made it quite clear to George VI that there was no chance of him sailing with the fleet to Normandy in 1944 no matter how much he wanted to. Maybe current governments should put a stop to the Windsor's military pretences in the same way.

Err, I think you've got the Churchill D-Day thing the wrong way around. The King had to stop Churchill going.

Zagreb, are you paying attention?

You pasted something I said, namely this:

"Prince Andrew went to the Falklands, a proper shooty war against a proper army and everything."

And in response, you say this:

"as has been demonstrated time and again, no one is remotely willing to put them in any sort of real danger and so they can't ever be real members of the service"

The very last time the Royal family got an opportunity to put one of its members in harms way, they damn well did it. I have photos of grinning Argentinians writing "this is for your little Prince" in Spanish on the warheads of missiles.

Harry's problem is that uncle Andy DID do it, exactly 25 years ago as it happens, and now he isn't going to be allowed to. Ironic, considering his father was a Major in the Household Cavalry...

SoRB

Ooh. That stung

Doh, bad wording. I knew about Andrew I was just trying to say that the Windsor's can't be treated like normal frontline soldiers who can be put in any situation a normal soldier would be. Yes, Andrew was serving in the Falklands but I'll bet the Navy didn't treat him like "another" soldier risk-wise. This is the problem with Harry - the army said he'd be going with his unit because, hey, he's just another soldier but the whole point is he's *not* "just another soldier" no matter how much he and the army themselves might want him to be.

"Err, I think you've got the Churchill D-Day thing the wrong way around. The King had to stop Churchill going."

Really? Not what I heard (although I do think I read it in a newspaper and they can be rather slipshod with their facts). Do you have a link to the proper story?

http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=694

Actually, it's a bit more complicated than that...

Originally they both wanted to go, but the King saw sense first and then had to persuade Churchill...

I think you Brits are just cowardly. Bush wasn't afraid to lead the charge into Iraq...Cheney was there pulling down Sadam's statue...the list goes on and on. You should take a lesson from us.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/bush_bravely_leads_3rd_infantry

"Yes, Andrew was serving in the Falklands but I'll bet the Navy didn't treat him like "another" soldier risk-wise."

Again, I'm baffled by this. Andrew was a naval helicopter pilot. Yes, he didn't yomp across the islands. Yes, he didn't take part in the 16 hour firefight for Goose Green. Because that REALLY dangerous stuff was done by the Parachute Regiment and similar infantry units. MOST of the people in the Falklands task force were not at the kind of risk the Paras were, because most of the people were not Paras or other frontline combat footsoldiers.

BUT... and this is the big thing... Andrew was THERE, on a ship, in the Falklands. Like all the engineers, technicians, cooks, navigators, gunners, signallers etc. etc., and other helicopter pilots. There was simply no way for anyone to control the risk he was under.

Remember this: 86 Royal Navy personnel were killed in the Falklands. 22 on the Ardent, 19 on the Sheffield, 18 on the Coventry and 13 on the Glamorgan. 14 of the dead were cooks - not normally regarded as a dangerous profession in any branch of the services.

There was an entirely foreseeable and at the same time entirely unpredictable and uncontrollable threat to every single British forces person in the area for the length of the war. And Andrew was there, AND the Argies knew it. Whatever else you say about him, you cannot with any integrity claim he was being "protected", unless you have an entirely unrealistic idea of how much control the Navy had of the situation in the South Atlantic.

One other point: your idea that Andrew was subject to some sort of special treatment would be entirely valid if he had been packed onto a little frigate and sent to look after South Georgia, say. He in fact served on HMS Invincible, one of the largest and highest value targets in the war. As it was, the ship was not successfully hit - but this was not for want of Argentinian effort. Consider the double propaganda victory of sinking our largest aircraft carrier and simultaneously killing Prince Andrew. You can bet they were doing their best.

SoRB

SoRB,

Fair dues, but I don't think the Argentines really had much chance of sinking an aircraft carrier in spite of the fact they would have loved to. I agree that I was wrong in stating that Andrew wasn't put at any risk but I think if, for example, he had been one of the "special forces" troops asked to storm the islands his role in any such operation would have been vetoed in exactly the way Harry's has. Similarly, I think is Harry was a member of the Navy rather than Army and had been stationed on a British aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf then there would have been no problems. I'll admit I've been arguing off the top of my head about much of this but I think my point about members of the Royal Family being unable to function as "ordinary" members of the armed forces stands. And this really does mean that the Royal Family should have to reconsider signing them up with the pretence that they are.

What about potential uses as a figurehead to rally around? That's the flip side of the 'preferred target' coin. Give them an elite bodyguard with maybe some special markings, but make sure they know who's really in charge.

I can just see the headlines: "Royal guard sack village! Maidens flee in terror at Harry's approach!"

Sorry, Zagreb, but you are still just plain wrong.

"I don't think the Argentines really had much chance of sinking an aircraft carrier"

Why not? They managed to destroy or severely damage several other ships. Invincible didn't have a force field or anything - it was as vulnerable to Exocets as any other vessel, if not more so due to its size.

"I agree that I was wrong in stating that Andrew wasn't put at any risk"

OK...

"but I think if, for example, he had been one of the "special forces" troops asked to storm the islands his role in any such operation would have been vetoed"

Well, possibly. But then again, have you got ANY idea just how hard it is to get into those units, for anyone?

You have a point though - Harry is, in contrast to his uncle, a footsoldier. This is unusual. Edward tried to get into the Marines, and famously couldn't hack it and went into musical theatre instead.

"I think my point about members of the Royal Family being unable to function as "ordinary" members of the armed forces stands."

And I think you're wrong. And in fact have *proven* you're wrong, on, as I said, the reasonable grounds that the very last time the Royal family had an opportunity to put one of its members into a war zone, in he went.

This is, as I say, Harry's problem. He's the first to be mollycoddled like this.

SoRB

"I think my point about members of the Royal Family being unable to function as "ordinary" members of the armed forces stands."

But Andrew *was* treated as normal member of the Armed Forces, that's the whole bleeding point. He did the normal thing a helicopter pilot was expected to do. No he wasn't dropped in behind enemy lines to single handedly kill Argies with nothing better than a sharpened toothbrush, but that's not what helicopter pilots are for.

Henry isn't being treated like a normal Commando, granted, but that's not the same as saying 'All members of the Royal family that join up are treated differently from other people that join up'. Frankly I'm surprised that someone didn't forsee the difficulties when he said he wanted to join the Army rather than the Navy, and persuade him it wasn't a very good idea. Of maybe they did and then tried and failed.

"I don't think the Argentines really had much chance of sinking an aircraft carrier in spite of the fact they would have loved to. "

Do a google for the Atlantic Conveyor...

They got close enough on a couple of occasions. (The Sheffield and Coventry were both acting as forward pickets for the Carrier Group).

Oh, and during the war we lost 4 Sea Kings (+ 1 that was destroyed by it's own crew after mysteriously finding itself on the deck in Chile!)

I always understood that the Queen intervened directly to ensure that Prince Andrew served in the Falklands. There was talk that the MOD didn't want him there.