reality-based educator

From the Telegraph (via Rawstory.com):

Prince Harry is to be sent to Iraq next year as a troop commander and is likely to patrol the hazardous border with Iran, defence sources have disclosed.

The third in line to the throne will join the Army's 1st Mechanised Brigade, which will be deployed to Basra in May 2007.

The prince has told colleagues that he is determined to go on operations and be treated as normally as possible - not kept out of the line of fire.

Defence chiefs, in consultation with the Prince of Wales's office, will have to devise a plan that will not put his life or those of his troops in any greater danger. Substantial planning will go into the deployment and the media is likely to be asked for co-operation on security aspects of the mission.

As a troop commander in the Blues and Royals, the prince will have the rank of cornet, equivalent to a second lieutenant, in charge of 11 men and four light tanks.

The reconnaissance formation will patrol the long border with Iran where weapons, insurgents, drugs and money are smuggled.

The prince's men will use night vision equipment to find terrorists trying to bring in sophisticated bomb making devices.

The desert patrols last up to 10 days with supplies being dropped from aircraft. The work is said to appeal to the soldiers as a mixture of Lawrence of Arabia and Prince 'is a cracking officer' the early SAS long-range desert patrols of the Second World War.

Although the mission will be hazardous, the prince is keen that his royal position will not disqualify him.

"There's no way I'm going to put myself through Sandhurst and then sit on my arse back home while my boys are out fighting for their country," he has said.

Now maybe this is just Royal Family p.r., but I have to say this behavior by Prince Harry is very noble, brave and unBushlike.

I mean, if Preznit George was Prince George, he would have absolutely sat on his arse back home while the rest of his boys were out fighting for their country.

Kinda the way the Bush twins are sitting home on their asses, Jonah Goldberg and Rich Lowrey from the National Review are sitting home on their asses, and all the rest of the Operation Yellow Elephant Chickenhawks and 101st Fighting Keyboardist Brigade members who believe they can best serve their nation in its time of need by writing stirring war rhetoric which will sucker others into enlisting are sitting home on their asses too.

Well, I say good for Prince Harry. Of course Charles' brother, Prince Andrew, saw combat experience in the Falklands war where he

flew various combat missions as a sub-lieutenant in the Falklands war, and helped in casualty evacuation, transport, and search and air rescue.

He also flew decoy missions to lure away Exocet ship-to-ship missiles fired by Argentine forces in their failed attempt to hold onto the Falkland Islands, a British possession.

I believe at the exact same time Randy Andy was seeing combat in the Falklands war, George W. Bush was still AWOL from the Texas Air National Guard and snorting cocaine at Camp David while working for his dad, Vice President George H.W. Bush, as a political consultant.

But you know people lead in different ways.

George W. is a behind the lines kind of leader.

So is Dick "Five Deferments" Cheney.

Oh, well - maybe the Bush twins will enlist in time for the war with Iran and break the trend.

After all, George H.W. Bush saw combat in WWII. It's not like the Bush family is completely allergic to danger.

But the recent additions to the Bush family, like George and Neil and Jeb, certainly are.