Harry the Bastard’s sanity test

by Don Franks

How’s your sanity at the moment?  - take this quick test.

“Anyone who doesn’t enjoy the army is mad,” commented Prince Harry on his second military posting to Afghanistan.

Telegraph journalist  John – ” I watched Harry’s first kill” – Bingham testifies to Harry’s enjoyment the first time.

“The black and white footage was grainy but unforgettable: the silhouette of a man running for cover as a fighter jet swooped down ready to strike. Moments later the outlines of fields and mud-walled compounds vanished into a cloud of dust.

“I watched it unfold like a surreal video game on a laptop screen a few miles away in a base in the far south of Helmand Province. With the Army’s customary black humour, they called it ‘Taliban TV’.”

Bingham got his ringside seat early January 2008. “The Prince had already been serving in Afghanistan for about a fortnight as part of a deployment shrouded in secrecy for fear of putting his fellow soldiers in extra danger.”

A news blackout had been agreed voluntarily by the British press and international capitalist media months in advance .

Bingham alone attended as the sole print journalist to see Harry “serving as Forward Air Controller, responsible for controlling military air movements from the ground and – on occasion – calling in air strikes such as the one that morning.”

This time Harry’s main view of the more remote parts of Helmand will be from the air rather than the ground as he returns as an Apache co-pilot, responsible for releasing Hellfire missiles or strafing the ground with gunfire.

“Anyone who says they don’t enjoy the Army is mad,” Harry told the Telegraph, “You can spend a week hating it and the next week it could be the best thing in the world and the best job you could ever, ever wish for. It has got so much to offer.”

Much indeed. This time round, Harry will join a unit which has the highest “kill rate” of any serving in Afghanistan.

In his role as co-pilot gunner in a two-man crew, the Prince will operate the aircraft’s weapon systems, which include Hellfire missiles and a 30mm chain gun. Flying out of Camp Bastion, he will also be expected to provide air cover on missions by special forces.

In a marked departure from the media blackout agreed during his previous tour of Helmand, the Ministry of Defence made it clear in an announcement last night that Prince Harry will be expected to fly in combat.

No date has been announced for his four-month tour of duty, which will be subject to review by senior generals and even the Prime Minister until the last minute. But the MoD decided no blackout was necessary this time because the Prince will be far less vulnerable as a pilot than he was when he went on foot patrols four years ago.

I have a different theory. This time, with a nod and a wink from the palace, the MoD have knowingly dispatched the prince on his last mission.

Hooray Harry has been a total liability to the royals from day one. Cheating on his art exams at school, parading in Nazi regalia, clouting press photographers and pissing rivers of vodka cocktails down the drain, Harry is a bigger waste of space than his dad, or Prince Charles. A constant reminder of parasitic royal decadence, fit only for killing the brain cells of  New Idea readers.

But if Harry was taken out in combat by the Taliban, British imperialism would exchange a minor nuisance for a major hero. Getting killed in action fighting the foe would, for Harry, be as good a career move as the early death of Elvis Presley.

Well, that’s just my theory and it may well be wrong, because in terms of Harry the Bastard’s sanity test, I find myself to be absolutely barking mad.