Prince Harry

I have UTTER contempt for those who are tattling on about his tackle blah blah rhubarb.

When was the last time that a Kennedy, Bush or Roosevelt or any of your oh so brave rulers put themselves and therefore their families in the line of fire?

As far as I remember, Mr. Bush looked like he shat his pants when he was told about 9/11 and ran away somewhere.

Well to be fair, Bush Senior and Kennedy did fight in WW2.

Which Kennedy?

The father was doing his best for the germans.

Yes. Mr. Bush Snr. was to the best of my knowledge a brave airman.

John F. Kennedy and he was a war hero. Kennedy commanded a PT boat hit and sank by enemy fire. He received the Marine and the Navy Medal for heroism under fire, managing to save many of his crew.

JFK, dear.
You're saying Joe Kennedy was doing his best for the Germans?
I forget the tale, Drifter.
Re-enlighten us, pls.

John F Kennedy's older brother was a combat pilot whose plane crashed over Europe.

Joseph P. Kennedy Jr.

Yes. And the crash was due to a premature weapon explosion during a training mission, not hostile fire.

You can put me right on this Jason, but he got rammed and sunk, then saved one guy.

And Kathleen, his sister, worked for the Red Cross in the UK during the war; leaving her home in the US to do so.

Of the three front-running candidates, two were eligible for combat service and of those, only one, John McCain has seen battle. On his twenty-third bombing mission he was shot down by North Vietnamese forces and captured. He stayed in the infamous Hanoi Hilton from 1967 to 1973 as a POW. For his service and refusal to break under questioning, McCain was awarded the Silver Star, the fifth highest ranking naval medal.

Joseph Kennedy was a Bostonian Irish Catholic who harboured a deep hatred of the British and advocated appeasement with Hitler. His intervention as Us ambassador to London before the Wat cost millons of lives, Jewish, Allied and Axis.

All eleven of his crew survived and the citation credits Kennedy for that fact. As commander of his boat, he is responsible for all the lives on it so the citation would be correct even if some of them were uninjured. That one guy he saved he pulled with his teeth while swimming. That's extraordinary effort and particularly so since Kennedy himself was injured in the sinking.

I'm not a fan of the Kennedys in general but I will give credit where it is due and I'm not going to split hairs about how heroic one or another person was.


Yes, British monarchs and royals have fought in war for over 2,000 years and I think that's right as ultimately they become Commanders-in-Chief of the armed forces. They should have some experience in the military.

What I find questionable was that the Queen apparently commanded him to go and fight. That's the monarch using her power as C-in-C to override what appears to have been the decision of the UK's military commanders to keep Harry home for the safety of his unit. I have no problem with him fighting and I truly believe he wanted to go. I'm not questioning his patriotism. I am questioning the Queen stepping into the fray to further the ends of the monarchy. From my perspective, as an American, that's an abuse of power however, as all the military forces technically belong to the Queen, I can't argue with it. How you run things on your island is up to you.

This is true, but then the Duke of Windsor, a former king, also advocated appeasement and entered into a secret agreement with Hitler to be returned to the throne once the UK fell to Germany.

Ahem

I can't think that his advocacy of appeasement of Hitler cost a single life.
Churchill was not swayed, of course.
And Roosevelt was not swayed.
And when he said. "Democracy is finished in England," he showed he was a defeatist.
To the immediate end of his career as ambassador.
But he never really influenced anyone.
He made a fool of himself.
His intervention cost millions of lives?
About as much as Diana Mitford's did.

Wait, you mean the same Churchill who assured the sinking of Lusitania to bring the US into war? Lusitania which was illegally carrying ammunition to the UK? You don't mean it! I'm shocked!