Give 'em hell, Harry

Three cheers for Prince Harry, who is now serving with the British army in Afghanistan; and four cheers for British authorities, who managed to keep the world in the dark about the younger prince's December deployment until now. Early last year, Harry was supposedly on his way to Iraq, a move that the editorial board applauded:

Nearly every British war features a version of this drama, in which cautious elders try to dissuade a young noble from putting himself in harm's way but the young noble insists on serving his country without special treatment or advantage. This supposedly private drama of stoic courage inevitably receives extensive press coverage, and Harry's case is no exception. But, in the end, it's hard to gainsay the physical courage required to deploy to Iraq at all.

Replace "Iraq" with "Afghanistan" and remove references to extensive press coverage and you have our position. Last May, when it was announced that the Iraq deployment was off, I  backed away from the earlier praise in a disappointed blog post. Thanks to Tribune's idiotic and suicidal policy of deleting the older stories that make up the overwhelming majority of our traffic (for the umpteenth time, I apologize; supposedly it's going to change soon), you can still read the post but not the original editorial. Anyway, props to the prince.