Friday 6 January 2023

Din and Confusion

The maximum possible number of Stars from the Second World War was six, but by my reckoning it would have been impossible to have served in all the necessary theatres.

The 1939-1945 Star, the Africa Star with 8th Army Clasp, the Italy Star, the France and Germany Star, the War Medal 1939–1945, and my father never talked about having killed anyone, although he obviously had, much less did he brag about a precise total.

Mine was the last generation to have known that one in any numbers, even remembering them still working when we were children, and you can take it from us that they just did not talk like that. Contrary to the stereotype, they were profoundly reticent about the War.

But then, how can Prince Harry possibly know that he killed 25 Taliban, rather than 24 or 26, when he did it from a helicopter? How can he be sure that they were Taliban at all? And with a record like that, how come he was so upset when his brother, an RAF Search and Rescue pilot, broke his necklace?

6 comments:

  1. Another of the glorious aspects of our Monarchy is that our royals actually serve in the Armed Forces and fight wars, unlike our elected politicians (or any elected Head of State) who merely send other people to war. Good on Harry.

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    1. His presence does rather explain the abject defeat in Afghanistan, yes.

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  2. I’d keep quiet since you’ve never served in the Armed Forces yourself.

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    1. Hardly anyone in Britain ever has. This is not that sort of country. He has gone too far even for Richard Kemp, and that is almost a kind of achievement. He has also lost any base, so to speak, in Britain. The British Left is not American liberalism, which is very bellicose indeed. Having married into it, he has become a Clinton-Obama-Biden Democrat, in the tradition that launched the Vietnam War. We are no friends of that sort of thing.

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  3. Will you be watching?

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