Prince Harry, the new Killer Captain

While it is very noble of Harry to want to fight for his country, he is a prince, and princes come with baggage
    • The Guardian,
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Prince Harry makes a pre-flight check
Prince Harry makes a pre-flight check. 'One is left feeling that Captain Wales would probably be a lot happier if he wasn’t royal at all.' Photograph: John Stillwell/PA

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Probably a Chinook? Yes! It's the return of Captain Wales! That superhero who flies into Britain's life sporadically, straight out of the ebony shadows of an agreed media omerta and into the carefully controlled lights of a single media interview, replete with photos that can't help but look like an especially sloaney university's production of Top Gun (it's the sunglasses).

It's a routine so predictable by this point that one can play Captain Wales Interview Bingo. Points for use of the words: "normal"; "normality"; "just one of the guys"; "as normal as I'm going to get"; "no special treatment"; "Captain Wales"; "Prince Harry"; "royal protection officers"; "flying"; "proud".

You might notice certain themes running through these interviews, themes which somewhat contradict one another, and they appear with fervour in this latest contribution to the genre: that of the normality of Captain Wales, and the inconvenient abnormality of Prince Harry. Because the sadly unavoidable truth for young Captain Wales is that, while it is very noble of him to want to fight for his country, he is a prince, and princes come with baggage, baggage that is then carried by royal protection officers.

No matter how many times he insists he is just a normal soldier, and no matter how many members of his squadron are trotted out to parrot the line, the fact remains he is royal and his presence there arguably – as many have pointed out previously, including Harry – puts his fellow soldiers in danger. But no matter, because this is Captain Wales's new incarnation: Killer Captain! During his deployment in 2007-08, Captain Wales spoke of his frustration at not being able to partake in actual action. No more! Now he drops gung-ho aphorisms like Dick Cheney ("Take a life to save a life") and the young chap who only months before was photographed with his fingers in the most curious of places during a game of "strip billiards" in Las Vegas has since placed those same fingers "on the triggers of deadly rockets, missiles and a 30mm cannon".

In case you're not feeling entirely safe, Britain, fret not, because Captain Wales has a natural aptitude for this kind of stuff, as he reveals: "I'm one of those people who loves playing PlayStation and Xbox, so with my thumbs I like to think that I'm probably quite useful. You can ask the guys, I thrash them at Fifa the whole time." Feel safer now, right?

The nation's eyes will collectively remain unbatted at the revelation from Captain Simon Beattie, Captain Wales's commander, that his charge is "pretty forward on the banter". No word on whether that banter includes racist terms such as "Paki" and "raghead", as it did three years ago in reference to one of Harry's then Sandhurst colleagues. Ah, banter.

Ultimately, one is left feeling that poor Captain Wales would probably be a lot happier if he wasn't royal at all. This by now familiar feeling is generally the reaction to any interview with any royal in the world. Well, except for Charles. He'd never be just one of the guys.

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