On the frontline: The prince in Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan, on Feb. 18, 2008. Photo: John Stillwell / AP-pool.
Around 5pm GMT Thursday afternoon, the breaking news started coming--Prince Harry, the second son of Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana, was fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. The way it was presented, it was almost as if the red-haired party-loving Brit was fighting a one-man battle in the dusty environs of Helmand province. Video started appearing on the BBC, showing the prince firing guns, doing foot patrols and on the telephone doing his high pressured job as a Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC). The prince it seems has been in Afghanistan since mid-December (missing his family's annual Christmas celebrations in Sandringham) . How could the news have taken this long to get out? Because there was a gentlemen's agreement between the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the British press. Fleet Street agreed not to report the deployment in exchange for having access to Prince Harry in the field. Under the blackout deal the British media had access to pooled footage, interviews and photos of the soldier prince that otherwise wouldn't have been released until Harry came back from battle in April.
The spoiler was the Drudge Report, which earlier today leaked the news that he was in fighting with British forces, which make up the second largest contingent of NATO troops in Afghanistan. The British press decided to run the story. According to The Guardian's Web site, Australian women's magazine "New Idea" and the German magazine "Bild" ran previously ran articles reporting the news, but nothing was picked up--until today. With the floodgates opened, the MoD had to confirm the story and the video material of Harry calling in air strikes and being interviewed made up the bulk of the news for the rest of the evening. Harry talked about what his mother would have thought of his deployment ("hopefully she would be proud") and says he thinks his elder brother William, who will one day be King, was jealous that he got to see frontline action. (William is also in the army but, due to his future role, will never see battle.) In Afghanistan, where Harry could only shower every few days and wash his clothes once a week, he has been "one of the lads [and] I think this is as normal as I am ever going to get." Sadly it looks like his time as just another soldier will be coming to an end. It's been widely predicted all evening that now, with his cover blown, he will be sent back to Britain for security reasons. Whatever happens, at least we all now know his coordinates.
