A window on Harry's world in Afghanistan

Guardian:

Widow Six Seven had just given them the signal over the radio: "Cleared hot." Seconds later, a roaring could be heard as the US F15 fighter jets dropped two 500lb bombs on their targets. As one dropped a third bomb on a Taliban bunker, men could be seen on the ground scrambling out from their cover.

To the American pilots, the English public school voice responding to their "in hot" request and guiding their missile fire gave no clue that the army officer with whom they were communicating was a member of the British royal family.

The soldier they knew as call sign Widow Six Seven was Prince Harry, working in Afghanistan as a forward air controller [FAC] identifying Taliban forces on the ground, verifying coordinates and clearing them as targets for attack.

The prince's main location was forward operating base (FOB) Delhi, an austere outpost in the perilous Garmsir area close to the border with Pakistan. It is a helicopter ride away from a military hospital, food comes from 24-hour ration packs, known to soldiers as ratpacks or compo and far from fresh, and the water is almost exclusively for drinking and cooking.

Toilets here are plywood-constructed thunderboxes or urinal pipes stuck in the ground known as "desert roses". It was here that the third in line to the throne said he had the chance to be "normal".

"It's bizarre," he said. "I'm out here now, haven't really had a shower for four days, haven't washed my clothes for a week and everything seems completely normal ... I think this is about as normal as I'm ever going to get."

Until last night, the media had agreed to a blackout on reporting that the 23-year-old Household Cavalry officer has been in Afghanistan since just before Christmas.

The prince had retrained as an FAC after being refused permission to fight in Iraq alongside the men he had led in his regiment as troop leader. He admits now he was regarded as a "bullet magnet". As a compromise, he was allowed, under strict conditions of secrecy, to work from a fortified position a distance away from the frontline in Helmand province, calling in aircraft and observing enemy movements.

On screens known to the troops as Kill TV or Taliban TV, the prince watched live pictures of the action on the battlefield. Cornet Wales, the rank by which he is known in the army, would observe all movements within his own restricted operating zone [ROZ] and give jets permission to enter his air space when he felt it was safe to do so. The prince's job was to study the pictures, looking for body heat or movement that would help pinpoint the enemy.

...

"It's good fun to be with just a normal bunch of guys, listening to their problems, listening to what they think. And especially getting through every day, its not painful to be here, but you are doing a job and to be with such fantastic people, the Gurkhas and the guys I'm sharing a room with, makes it all worthwhile."

...

The story about Prince Harry breaks from the normal narrative about Afghanistan being a place where we are losing the war. It certainly does not sound like Prince Harry thinks he is losing. There have not been many warrior princes in recent times, but there is certainly an old tradition of such with the British thrown. The Prince deserves respect for putting himself in harms way and doing his part to win this war. There are certainly enough in the media and at home trying to lose it.

The Times says the Brit forces are now scrambling to move him to another location after his presence in Afghanistan was revealed. The Daily Mail has more on his deployment as well as several pictures.