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Tough year ahead as Prince Harry begins British officer trai
Tough year ahead as Prince Harry begins British officer training
LONDON (AFP) - An "excited" Prince Harry, third in line to the British throne, began a tough 44 weeks of intensive training as an army officer at Sandhurst, Britain's elite military academy.
Harry, 20, the younger son of Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana, entered a world of physical hardship, lack of sleep, pranks, hard drinking and -- some say -- secret liaisons with female cadets.
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"I am really excited. I want to get on with it and do the best job I can do," said Harry in a statement issued by Clarence House, the official residence of his father.
Prince Charles personally took his son to Sandhurst, in Camberley, southeast England, after laying a wreath at the Cenotaph in central London to mark the 60th anniversary of VE Day.
A royal spokesperson told AFP that Harry was "very much looking forward" to officer training, after he was forced to delay his entry by five months to recover from an injured knee.
"He was very disappointed that he could not go in January because his knee was not quite up to it, and the next one he had to wait for was May, so he has been chomping at the bit a bit," the spokesperson said.
There was also a brief moment of doubt in January whether Harry would attend Sandhurst after he was pictured at a costume party dressed as a Nazi German soldier, complete with a swastika armband.
His choice of outfit, shortly before the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, triggered an uproar for which the prince apologized.
In a smart dark grey suit and bright blue tie, Harry -- whose red hair appeared to have been freshly cropped -- met Commandant Major General Andrew Ritchie on the steps of the grand old college building as he arrived Sunday.
He was also introduced to tough-talking Sergeant Major Vince Gaunt, who will keep the 270 new cadets in check.
Recruits were seen trudging to their quarters carrying their kit on their backs and brand-new ironing boards -- obligatory for every Sandhurst newcomer -- under their arms.
Harry's ironing board was spotted in the back of a Range Rover in which his private secretary Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton was riding.
The young prince was later seen with a red name badge that simply said "Wales". His father, who holds the title Prince of Wales, was also seen giving him a playful punch to the arm before driving off.
London's Evening Standard newspaper quoted former cadet Sam Olsen, who attended Sandhurst in 1999, as saying that the moment the parents leave, the instructors start shouting at the recruits.
"It was terrifying. The entire night was taken up with showing us how to iron," he recalled.
The first five weeks are known as the "breaking-in" period, when both male and female cadets train for up to 20 hours a day without leaving the academy grounds.
Once they get through that, the recruits can go out for a weekend. That usually means going to pubs and nightclubs in London and getting "hammered" drunk, he said.
For Harry, a well-known party lover, that should prove no problem.
Back at Sandhurst, male recruits are often tempted to find their ways to the rooms of members of the all-female platoon, Olsen said.
Harry, whose father and his grandfather Prince Philip both served in the Royal Navy, and whose older brother Prince William is finishing university in Scotland, will be able to pursue his love of polo, a popular Sandhurst sport.
Harry spent time after graduating from elite Eton College working on a polo farm in Argentina and a sheep station in Australia. He also went to Lesotho, in southern Africa, to work with children living with AIDS.
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