The media’s reports of Price Harry’s deployment to Afghanistan, were what prompted the prince’s pre-mature return home.
CNN.com reports that the young Prince was deployed to Afghanistan in December. The major news outlets had all agreed to keep the story secret to ensure the safety of Prince Harry. Last Thursday, a web site broke the news on the internet.
The British Ministry of Defense stated that, “The release of this information has put Prince Harry and those deployed at risk. The decision was primarily based on the world-wide media coverage after the story broke.”
CNN.com reported that as of Friday evening the young Prince was en route back to Great Britain.
“At the end of the day I like to sort of be a normal person, and for once I think this is about as normal as I’m ever going to get,” he said in a recent interview. “As far as I’m concerned, I’m out here as a normal JTAC on the ground and not as Prince Harry.”
The rest of the article talks about how Prince Harry was not treated any differently than any other soldier. CNN.com reports that his duties included calling in air strikes and air support when necessary, guaranteeing the accuracy of bombing on the ground, and guarding against incidents of friendly fire.
The story frames Harry as upholding the family tradition of participating in the Military. His brother, Price William, his uncle, great-grandfather and so on all have fought for Great Britain.
This article was very interesting to read. It was half news and half PR. The article depicted Harry as just another upstanding member of the royal family, when just last year the press surrounding Prince Harry was not exactly positive.
The media portrayed Harry as a party boy. He was seen going out to clubs and getting into mischievous and paparazzi worthy situations. Now the image of Prince Harry in the media has changed because he served in Afghanistan.
He seems more down to earth. This will do nothing but strengthen Britain’s love for the members of the Royal Family. Whether or not this was an intentional PR move, it ended up being great press Prince Harry.
