My heart went out to the soldier prince –
How could anyone not love and cherish him?
For he has known sorrow to the zenith degree.
The wicked arrow of fate robbed him
Of who was too precious to lose,
But in his mother’s eyes, beautiful as they were
Was the conviction that
She would be ever near
To her younger son, the dear.
In remotest dominion,
The prince sought to leave his mark
Through ice, snow, sleet and rain –
He beat back the caustic acidity of wind
From pole to pole,
To savannah and jungle
And ploughed a caring way
In his heart, in his mind.
The memory and knowledge
Of the physical absent one –
One who had vowed
To be permanently close
Was in his dealing
With near-lost tribes.
Though the heat was soaring,
The mosquitoes and thick shroud
He sought his way in his mind.
There were two tours of duty
And the sad aftermath
Of military death and injury –
Long live the brave – who, in uniform or out
Protect our verdant lands!
Long live those who, in peril,
Receive such terrible physical
Moral and psychological injuries!
But our prince would not let
The sun go down too easily
Invicta games into play
And with custodians of valour consumed
With a drink, shared in solace,
Past knowledge –
And to a toast with a comrade
The soldier prince quaffed his fill
And watched the day fit dawn
In a silent hymn
Of praise and relief
-- Hagen Hopkins
Henry Charles Albert David ("Prince Harry") was the younger son of the prince of Wales, the hier to the British throne. His mother Diana died when he was 12. As Officer Cadet Wales he entered the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 2005 and in 2006 was commissioned as a cornet in the Blues and Royals (Royal Horse Guards and 1st Dragoons), a in the Household CavalryThe Blues and Royals (Royal Horse Guards and 1st Dragoons) (RHG/D) is a cavalry regiment of the British Army, part of the Household Cavalry, the 2nd-most senior regiment in the British army. Its colonel-in-chief is his grandmother, queen Elizabeth II, and the colonel of the regiment is his aunt Princess Anne. As a lieutenant in 2007 he was scheduled to be deployed to Iraq as part of the 1st Mechanised Brigade of the 3rd Mechanised Division, "the Iron Division" the only division based in the UK at continual operational readiness, but the head of the British army announced that he would not serve there. Instead, he secretly spent a 10-week tour in Afghanistan as a forward air controller, for which service he was presented with an Operational Service Medal by his aunt. Then he trained to fly Apache attack helicopters and returned to Afghanistan as a captain on a 20-week deployment. He then served as a staff officer in London, responsible for co-ordinating projects and commemmorative events. In that role he launched the Invictus Games for injured military personnel in 2014 and served as tehir president. He then spent 4 weeks with the Austraian Defence Force before leaving military service in 2015. As a civilian he succeeded his grandfather upon his retirement as ceremonial captain general (equivqlent to the colonel-in-chief of a regiment) of the Royal Marines, the Royal Navy's amphibious light infantry corps.
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