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Anonymous wrote:Finished listening to this today. A few thoughts that linger:

1. I cannot believe so much money / so many military resources were spent on him AFTER he had to be pulled from Afghanistan for opsec reasons.

That they gave him months of one-on-one instruction from one of the world's top instructord to teach him how to fly Apaches (equipment which, as he notes, cost hundreds of millions of dollars) just seems like a stupid move when he'd already been forced to abort one deployment for security reasons.

And then, shortly after this massive investment in him, he decides to leave the military! Why? Very unclear, but the way he put it, it sounds like he hit a wall or got bored or something. He says he "knows it was time to move on" or something like that.

What a HUGE waste of resources. Basically, because he's a prince he got to spent months and waste insane amounts of money to acquire a skill he ultimately decided not to use, which someone else could have been learning in his place, had he been honest with himself and others. (Because, again -- the instruction was ONE ON ON, and the instructors available are few and far between.)

That section alone hugely soured my view of him.

In general, my main takeaway was: this guy is evidently incapable of self-reflection. Otherwise, he never would have chosen to share so many ancedotes that cast him as spoiled, self-indulgent, and above all, self-pitying. He always finds a way to shift the blame to someone else. Quite a skill!

Harry could not pass the exam to move to major. He had intense help and every advantage but failed several times. I think this is a shame, because he probably would have had a much better life had he been able to remain in the military. William was also a helicopter pilot in the RAF for about 8 years doing search and rescue missions. He could have easily risen in rank like his Grandfather, but he left to do royal work.

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Anonymous wrote:They have means to live a better life than 99% of human population but if they want to be uber wealthy, influential, and special, they'll have to accept consequences of their choices.

Harry did not choose to be born into the royal family, so your theory falls apart on its face.

He did choose to trash it but demand to stay a part of it?

He didn’t trash the family as a whole, nor did he trash the monarchy. His issues are with the way people in the family are pitted against each other, intertwined with serious issues with the British press and how those with less power in the family are thrown to the media wolves to benefit the more powerful members.

All of these people have power to walk away but choose to stay and play these games for wealth and privileges.

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Anonymous wrote:Yes, he is privileged financially, etc. But being coldly told your mother is dead, left alone in the dark you fear to process it, and being forced to parade behind her coffin on display like a prize poodle walking a show circuit?

There are millions of financially underprivileged families where no child would ever suffer like that.

Many, many children “suffer like that”, unfortunately.

Could you name one other child that had been forced to parade behind his dead mother’s coffin on live tv? Of the millions you claim exist?

The children I’m thinking about aren’t ‘important’ enough to have been on TV at all, silly! But mu DH was an orphan by 11 so I do think that often people can move on.

DP. I think you are underestimating the impact of going through that under intense public/media scrutiny that follows for years afterward.

Oh please.

How about the impact of going through that and getting no support at all, like everyone else???

Congratulations, your husband wins the suffering Olympics.

Dp.

Do you not realize how badly out of touch it is for him to complain?

Not the PP. As someone who is mostly anti-Royal and read the book expecting a hate read (which I did not get), I didn’t think he was complaining at all. He was factual. The fact is that his life as a child was horrific after his mother died. That is just the truth. I didn’t come away from that book thinking he was whiny. I came away from the book — which I expected to gleefully hate — really saddened.

It’s not out of touch for Harry to write about a series of horrifying events he experienced as a child. I have no idea where the crazy haters are making all this stuff up from. I think they are either crazy or they didn’t read the book.

He actually mostly complained about the press, which was very legit. He did not complain about royal duties, which I found surprising. I would think going to endless nursing home openings and ribbon cuttings would be tedious. He seems to be sorry that he can't do that stuff now.

Harry might have memories of doing visits with Diana — and how well they were received. I think he did —and probably does — appreciate that aspect of the job as being something more than perfunctory. I think, too, that with Sentebale and Invictus, he found ways to move beyond the performative aspects of the job to provide meaningful resources and targeted services to people who clearly benefit from them. If Harry sees his purpose as “service” he might include quite a lot — from his military service to ribbon cuttings under that umbrella.

Harry discussed multiple times in the book about how much work/service gave him purpose. My sense is that a big part of why he was so opposed to a complete break from the royal family (in addition to the fact that it is his family), was because he felt he could do a lot of valuable work to support important causes with that platform.

Which was delusional on his part, but he doesn't see that.

Why? I found the story of how Harry started working with disabled vets and the founding of Invictus to be an inspiring read. My opinion of him went up after that.

DP I agree. I feel similarly about his work with Sentebale. He has done a lot, in practical and in inspiring ways, just with those two programs alone. I hadn’t realized how young Harry was when he co-developed that program.

Indeed. It sounds too good to be true.

Anonymous wrote:Finished listening to this today. A few thoughts that linger:

1. I cannot believe so much money / so many military resources were spent on him AFTER he had to be pulled from Afghanistan for opsec reasons.

That they gave him months of one-on-one instruction from one of the world's top instructord to teach him how to fly Apaches (equipment which, as he notes, cost hundreds of millions of dollars) just seems like a stupid move when he'd already been forced to abort one deployment for security reasons.

And then, shortly after this massive investment in him, he decides to leave the military! Why? Very unclear, but the way he put it, it sounds like he hit a wall or got bored or something. He says he "knows it was time to move on" or something like that.

What a HUGE waste of resources. Basically, because he's a prince he got to spent months and waste insane amounts of money to acquire a skill he ultimately decided not to use, which someone else could have been learning in his place, had he been honest with himself and others. (Because, again -- the instruction was ONE ON ON, and the instructors available are few and far between.)

That section alone hugely soured my view of him.

In general, my main takeaway was: this guy is evidently incapable of self-reflection. Otherwise, he never would have chosen to share so many ancedotes that cast him as spoiled, self-indulgent, and above all, self-pitying. He always finds a way to shift the blame to someone else. Quite a skill!

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Anonymous wrote:I think his military career wasn't how a regular Joe does military. It was customized and watered down, kindda like luxury VVIP hunting trips.

And what exactly are you basing your thoughts on? Something specific from the book?

What stands out to me is that even in the military, even in Afghanistan, Harry was still threatened by the press, and the pressures of realizing that his presence put his fellow soldiers at extra risk. That’s a difficult and constant pressure all the way around.

Anonymous wrote:I think his military career wasn't how a regular Joe does military. It was customized and watered down, kindda like luxury VVIP hunting trips.

Anonymous wrote:Finished listening to this today. A few thoughts that linger:

1. I cannot believe so much money / so many military resources were spent on him AFTER he had to be pulled from Afghanistan for opsec reasons.

That they gave him months of one-on-one instruction from one of the world's top instructord to teach him how to fly Apaches (equipment which, as he notes, cost hundreds of millions of dollars) just seems like a stupid move when he'd already been forced to abort one deployment for security reasons.

And then, shortly after this massive investment in him, he decides to leave the military! Why? Very unclear, but the way he put it, it sounds like he hit a wall or got bored or something. He says he "knows it was time to move on" or something like that.

What a HUGE waste of resources. Basically, because he's a prince he got to spent months and waste insane amounts of money to acquire a skill he ultimately decided not to use, which someone else could have been learning in his place, had he been honest with himself and others. (Because, again -- the instruction was ONE ON ON, and the instructors available are few and far between.)

That section alone hugely soured my view of him.

In general, my main takeaway was: this guy is evidently incapable of self-reflection. Otherwise, he never would have chosen to share so many ancedotes that cast him as spoiled, self-indulgent, and above all, self-pitying. He always finds a way to shift the blame to someone else. Quite a skill!

Anonymous wrote:well... you might nt realize that this is the Book Club forum, not the entertainment forum and its really rude to crash a book club and opine when you haven't read teh book. Im pretty sure no-one here would go to a book club and do that, its considered very crass behavior. Of course you are allowed to have opinions about Prince harry but just like it would be strange to come into a thread about "As I lay dying" and go off repeatedly about Faulkner when you have never read anything he wrote, just know its southern and start blathering about incestous southern family or what you learned from Eudora Welty - its very strange to comment on a book that you have not read. Do you go on other book club threads and start opining about the characters, plot points and general themes without having read them? I doubt it.

Anonymous wrote:Let’s start reporting posters who haven’t read the book and are just stirring trouble. This thread is to discuss the book, not what you think you know about Prince Harry.