The "SPARE" goes to War. by Prince Harry

He and I went round and round, and in my head I went back and forth, and by a process of elimination we landed on the Army. It made sense. It aligned with my desire to be outside the box, to disappear. The military would take me away from the prying eyes of the public and the press. But it also fitted with my hope of making a difference. PH

My first post on "Spare" didn't include my thoughts on the war stories that was a big part of the book.  I guess I didn't want to dive into my personal thoughts on that part of the journey through the book, because it was the hardest.  How do I sour my five star rating of the book by being honest about my feelings about war and some of the conclusions "Lieutenant Wales" came to. 

"You can’t kill people if you think of them as people. You can’t really harm people if you think of them as people. They were chess pieces removed from the board, Bads taken away before they could kill Goods. I’d been trained to “other-ize” them, trained well. On some level I recognized this learned detachment as problematic. But I also saw it as an unavoidable part of soldiering." PH

My hope when I pick up a memoir is to make every attempt at understanding the author. That is the reason I am reading the book.  I already said I need to lay aside all judgement and just let myself believe the author, because his story matters.  I want his story to matter, because then my story matters.  I can't pick and choose.  Either every story matters, or no story matters.  

War is a hard one for me to extend my compassion towards.  It is maybe the ugliest part of humanity.  In this soldier's own words, it is about the need to de-humanize the other.  I would do a great disservice to the book and it's author if I failed to mention a strong motivation for his choice to be a soldier. 

"I never forgot being in that TV room at Eton, the one with the blue doors, watching the Twin Towers melt as people leaped from the roofs and high windows. I never forgot the parents and spouses and children I met in New York, clutching photos of the moms and dads who’d been crushed or vaporized or burned alive. September 11 was vile, indelible, and all those responsible, along with their sympathizers and enablers, their allies and successors, were not just our enemies, but enemies of humanity." PH

"Enemies of humanity"... Again, a reminder that the targets were not human.  How can I separate the featherless bipeds dressed in the garb of the Taliban from the rest of the featherless bipeds we call humans?  If I do that, then all grace, compassion and love, for me,  is gone.  I have no other choice in my mind but to embrace everyone as human, even the ones capable of the worst ugliness the world has to offer.  

There is no conclusion for me here.  I want to see the humanity in every living soul, but maybe that is a foolish dream. 

 I honour and feel proud of my great uncle Don and his conscientious objection during WW2?  How then can I feel anything sympathetic to those who don't object, to those who chose to carry the guns?  I don't know.  Maybe all I can do is be sad for humanity that it requires this kind of behaviour.  

"Long after returning to base, I did a sort of mental scan. I’d been in combat before, I’d killed before, but this was my most direct contact with the enemy—ever. Other engagements felt more impersonal. This one was eyes on target, finger on trigger, fire away.

I asked myself how I felt.

Traumatized?

No.

Sad?

No.

Surprised?

No. Prepared in every way. Doing my job. What we’d trained for.

I asked myself if I was callous, perhaps desensitized. I asked myself if my non-reaction was connected to a long-standing ambivalence towards death.

I didn’t think so.

It was really just simple maths. These were bad people doing bad things to our guys. Doing bad things to the world."PH

Maybe my only recourse is to find compassion for those who believe there is no other recourse but to do what they do on a battlefield.  What it does allow me is the freedom to have compassion for other stories, like abortion, medical assistance in dying, refusing medical treatment and suicide.  Death is a part of all of our stories.  Maybe it's not that we die that hurts others as much as how and when we die.  There is no answer, easy or otherwise.  This is life and life ends in death.  Now I get to chose to lay aside the judgement and just hurt. That has to be the most human thing I can do.  

* * *  

Prince Harry walked behind the coffins of two women.  The second woman had lived a complete life, the first woman had not.  Maybe that is where my compassion starts.  

"When the funeral finally took place, Willy and I, barely exchanging a word, took our familiar places, set off on our familiar journey, behind yet another coffin draped in the Royal Standard, sitting atop another horse-pulled gun carriage. Same route, same sights—" PH

Every story matters... More than a "SPARE" by Prince Harry

"I looked up at the trees: You don’t know!

Harold…I honestly don’t.

I turned to Pa. He was gazing at me with an expression that said: Neither do I.

Wow, I thought. Maybe they really don’t.

Staggering. But maybe it was true.

And if they didn’t know why I’d left, maybe they just didn’t know me. At all.

And maybe they never really did.

And to be fair, maybe I didn’t either.

The thought made me feel colder, and terribly alone.

But it also fired me up. I thought: I have to tell them.

How can I tell them?

I can’t. It would take too long.

Besides, they’re clearly not in the right frame of mind to listen.

Not now, anyway. Not today.

And so:

Pa? Willy?

World?

Here you go."  PH

It can be a challenge, but when I read a memoir, I lay aside all conclusions and ideas about the surrounding facts of the story, and I chose to believe the author.  After all, it is their story, why not believe them?  I doubt that most who take on the challenge of a memoir would extend much effort into fictionalizing their own story.  I think it is the core of most humans to want to be known for who they really are.  Memoirs are a lot of work.  Writing is a lot of work.  It is easier to tell the truth.  

There may be a lot of squabble about this memoir, but I don't blame Prince Harry at all for putting his story out into the world.  He spent the majority of his years seeing others pass a less than accurate version of his story round the globe.  It's not that he is willingly choosing to betray his family; it seems the media has already done that.  So after the hell he experienced with the heartless media industry, he took his story back.  I can only commend him for doing that.  

"Being a Windsor meant working out which truths were timeless, and then banishing them from your mind. It meant absorbing the basic parameters of one’s identity, knowing by instinct who you were, which was forever a byproduct of who you weren’t." PH

As I read, I kept finding a kindred spirit in this second born son in the shadows of his family.  I found myself understanding the desire for identity.  Prince Harry's story is a magnified version, but still, I found myself feeling compassion for him.  I am a second born.  Identity is not easy to find when shadowed by the first.  

"My existence was just fun and games to these people. I wasn’t a human being to them. I wasn’t a fourteen-year-old boy hanging on by his fingernails. I was a cartoon character, a glove puppet to be manipulated and mocked for fun. So what if their fun made my already difficult days more difficult, made me a laughingstock before my schoolmates, not to mention the wider world? So what if they were torturing a child? All was justified because I was royal, and in their minds royal was synonymous with non-person. Centuries ago royal men and women were considered divine; now they were insects. What fun, to pluck their wings." PH

The most heart breaking part of reading this book, was the awareness of the cruelty of the media in Prince Harry's life.  I still can't comprehend the inhumane treatment that was displayed over and over again.  I remember vaguely when Diana died.  I don't remember where I was at that moment when I heard of her death, but I remember wondering at the senselessness of the accident.  Why the reckless driving?  Why the crazy pursuit of the paparazzi? Who was this woman that made other human beings act worse than rabid dogs?  I didn't understand then, and I don't understand now.  I don't understand the abuse of people just because they are celebrities.  Do these camera crazies  have nothing better to do with their lives?  Right now,  I am feeling very grateful for my insignificance. 

 "I wanted to hug her, though of course I didn’t. Out of the question. I never had done and couldn’t imagine any circumstance under which such an act might be sanctioned." PH

Another heart breaking realization for me was that there was a grandmother out there who didn't hug her grandchildren.  A grandmother that was loved by the world, but seemed to miss out of a simple act of love to the people closest to her.  As much as I have respect for who Queen Elizabeth II was and what she accomplished, I feel sorry for her that she missed out on her grandchildren's hugs.  Did any of them try to hug her and were discouraged?  Or were they just told that hugging the Queen was off limits, even if she was "Granny"?  Again... I am grateful for my insignificance and the insignificance of my family.  I was able to hug my grandparents and they were willing to hug me.  

"Why did they want to be famous? That was the thing I never understood. Because fame is the ultimate freedom? What a joke. Some kinds of fame provide extra freedom, maybe, I suppose, but royal fame was fancy captivity." PH

I wonder how many girls still grow up with the Disney fantasy that royalty is something to be desired.  Did Hollywood ever do us a favour by glamourizing that kind of fame?  I hope this story shines a better light on that illusion.  

"I'll forever support my Queen, my Commander in Chief, my Granny. Even after she’s gone. My problem has never been with the monarchy, nor the concept of monarchy. It’s been with the press and the sick relationship that’s evolved between it and the Palace. I love my Mother Country, and I love my family, and I always will. I just wish, at the second-darkest moment of my life, they’d both been there for me.

And I believe they’ll look back one day and wish they had too." PH

I am Canadian and I will still admit, I have a troubled relationship with the idea of the monarchy.  I don't totally understand the requirement for such an archaic institution in the twenty first century.  I am not a big fan of obligation, institutions, age old traditions, especially when they become more important than the people that are trying to keep them alive.  For me, people matter, not institutions.  But I am willing to put my wondering aside to embrace someone else's passion and story.  I commend Prince Harry for his loyalty to his extended family and country, but I am much more proud of him for his loyalty to his wife and children,  the truth, and his conscience.  

I usually say thank you to the authors when I do a blog post on the books they write.  But when there is no hope that the author will read my blog post, I wonder if I need to include my gratitude.  I am grateful for this read and will give it a five star rating.  If I could ever say a few words to the Duke of Sussex, it would be this.  

"I'm sorry for how the sick side of humanity has treated you. I wish you could have had a life like mine. Insignificance is much better on the human soul than fame, celebrity and royalty"  

"And to you, the reader: Thank you for wanting to know my story in my words. I am so grateful to be able to share it thus far." PH