The Prince of Wales in Afghanistan

I wanted to post on this earlier but was holding out for a better photo -no luck. In any event, in one of the little acts that I favor most when it comes to royals HRH the Prince of Wales made a swift, surprise visit to the British troops in Afghanistan. This was no formality-laden trip to Kabul, the Prince visited troops at forward positions in Helmand Province, the most Taliban-ridden part of the country. Some areas were so far forward the Prince had to don a helmet and body armor (ever seen a president or vp do that?). There is nothing I like better to see royals in uniform visiting their troops in the field (and if I can be a military fashionista for a moment I think the British desert camo duds are the best -even had to get some myself) and the Prince of Wales can relate to them in a special way as the father of an Afghanistan veteran (which he spoke about). The Prince also met with Afghan military and civilian officials and visited some local sites of interest. The British have been the most active in the Afghan war after the U.S. and this visit has also shown how the American fascination with the British monarchy still survives. Royals from numerous European countries (Denmark, Holland etc) have visited the front in Afghanistan but it did not make the news on U.S. TV and yet I first heard of Prince Charles visiting the front on the uber-American Fox News Channel. It seems you can take the colonies out of the empire but you can't take...