What now for the Prince who wants to be a soldier?

HAS the playboy prince turned into Harry the hero? The third in line to the throne had been known for his wild-child image – smoking cannabis, drinking too much and getting into scuffles with photographers.

Now, after 10 weeks in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban, he is being celebrated as a brave young man who fought for gran and country. But now that he is home, Harry's future is an uncertain one.

Should he be allowed to go back on active service? If more tours of duty are blocked, will he walk? If he does leave the army, disillusioned with the opportunities it can offer him, will the 'ginger bullet magnet' go back to his playboy ways and become a 'ginger trouble magnet'? Has he now become a prime terror target, making it even harder for him to lead a normal life as a civilian?

For now, all is well in Harry's world. To the tabloid press who were once so quick to print photos of the prince falling out of nightclubs in the wee small hours, he is now "Harry the Secret Hero". Since news broke of his deployment to the frontline, pages and pages have been devoted to the daring tale of what happened "When Harry met Tali".

The pictures of Harry in combat gear, wearing dark glasses and with a pistol slung casually in his webbing, are a huge publicity boost for the military and for Harry himself. Royal watcher Ingrid Seward, editor of Majesty magazine, said Harry has grown in stature as a result of his service overseas.

"It's a very positive image. People are very proud of him. He has earned the respect of the soldiers out there and it's given the troops a much needed morale boost. It's all very positive," said Seward.

Rank and file soldiers and colleagues in the military have been deluging online message forums with support for Harry. Many of the comments are irreverent towards the young royal and scathing towards the media and politicians.

One commented: "This is the stuff that makes me proud to be British. Is there another country in the developed world that has members of its official 'first family' in harm's way?"

One quipped: "He's ginge, he's loud, He's done us f***ing proud. Nice one Harry." Another added: "Good stuff, chuffed for him. He's got more balls than our Government."

But the longevity of Harry's heroic image may depend on what role the army can find for its soldier prince. He will have been disappointed by yesterday's comments from the head of the army. The Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt, said there was no "immediate prospect" of Harry going anywhere for at least 18 months.

Harry will be especially jealous that elder brother William is likely to serve overseas with the military on board a Royal Navy warship.

While Harry, 23, has clearly matured in the five years since his father sent him to a drug rehabilitation clinic to warn him of the dangers of smoking marijuana, he does not appear ready to settle into a desk job.

He was disappointed at being forced by elements of the media to return home early and said he would relish another frontline posting. "It's something I would love to do. I don't want to sit around Windsor because I generally don't like England that much and it's nice to be away from all the press and the papers."

Some former servicemen yesterday sympathised with Harry's annoyance at returning home early and blamed the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for not having the courage to allow the royal to stay in a combat zone.

"He will come back feeling angry and frustrated," said Clive Fairweather, a former deputy commander of the SAS.

"They should have kept him out there and allowed him to finish his tour of duty. What a windy lot the MoD are. The danger to him was quite different to the situation in Iraq, where he was in a Scimitar armoured car working from a known base and all the insurgents had to do what hunt for that kind of vehicle.

"In Afghanistan, he would have been moving around all the time and the Taliban would have had to try and find him and they would have been in danger doing that."

There have, of course, been precedents for royals going to war. Prince Andrew, Harry's uncle, flew Royal Navy helicopters during the 1982 Falklands War and his grandfather, Prince Philip, served on Royal Navy battleships during the Second World War.

But as the paparazzi-stalked prince knows only too well, the media is now a more omnipresent beast than it once was. Some believe that makes it virtually impossible for the prince to serve on the front line again.

"We live in a crazed celebrity-reporting world. It's pretty miraculous that he managed 10 weeks (of anonymity]," says Adam Holloway, a Conservative member of the Commons defence select committee.

The 10-week news blackout – which Scotland on Sunday was party to – was broken on Thursday night by the US-based Drudge Report website. A report two months earlier by an Australian woman's magazine had passed by largely unnoticed.

Once the news was out, Dannatt said "the right thing to do" was to bring Harry home for his own safety as well as the protection of his comrades. "The risks of him staying now outweigh the benefits of him staying – from his point of view and also from the point of view of other soldiers serving with him and their families," he said.

Speaking before he knew he would be pulled out early, Harry – who worked with a unit of Gurkhas during his deployment – acknowledged that he was a potential target.

"The Gurkhas think it's hysterical how I'm called the bullet magnet but they've yet to see why, so they're a little bit upset about that," he said.

Radical cleric Omar Bakri Mohammad has warned that having fought against the Taliban, Harry has become a top target for militants. He is now an "ambassador of war", unlike his mother Diana who had been an "ambassador of peace", according to the firebrand preacher.

Speaking from Lebanon, he said: "I think now he will be more targeted by the Taliban and al-Qaeda supporters than before.

"It's better for him to return home. It seems to me he is carrying out war against Islam and Muslims. Strictly speaking, what he was doing was a crime."

The preacher, who fled London in 2005, also claimed that Harry's presence in Afghanistan would be used as a recruiting tool for al-Qaeda and could provoke more terror attacks on Britain. But British Muslim groups were quick to reject these sentiments.

Ihtisham Hibatullah, of the British Muslim Initiative, said: "We all opposed the war in Afghanistan and Iraq as well and we think our troops shouldn't be there, but calling for any sort of violence against the troops or Prince Harry individually, that we do not agree with. We do not agree with anyone calling for beheading or violence against troops."

Military experts dispute whether the threat of Islamic extremists should or would prevent Harry from returning to the front line.

Stuart Crawford, a former tank commander and now an anti-terrorism security adviser, said: "Out there, he would not have been putting his troops in any more danger than they would have been in anyway.

"OK, you're in danger because you have a Royal with you. But that's no different from being in danger because you're in a supply column or being in danger because you're near to artillery, or whatever. He will be furious and wondering what's the point."

Crawford even suggested that Harry would be better protected on the front line than he would be at home, echoing the prince's own comment that "every single person that supports (the Taliban] will be trying to slot me".

"He's probably safer in Afghanistan than he will be back home in the UK, if you think about it," says Crawford. "He has all his fellow soldiers with him and they are well trained. And he's a forward air controller for Pete's sake, it's not exactly a matter of 'fix bayonets and follow me, men, over the top'."

He added: "The question is: what is Prince Harry for? You are either a career soldier or you are not. And you can't be that without fighting and going to war. Will he be another Prince Andrew, who flies helicopters and plays golf?"

Harry himself answered that question in a 2006 interview when he said he would not have gone through the rigours of officer training at Sandhurst military academy only to "sit on my arse back home while my boys are out fighting for their country".

And now he has returned home, he is equally adamant that his fighting days are far from over. The military's response could hold the key to whether Harry returns to his playboy prince ways, or retains his place in the public consciousness as a war hero.

FOOD CHALLENGE
Prince Harry has thrown down the gauntlet to chefs, including Jamie Oliver, to give frontline troops in Afghanistan a taste of home.

He issued a challenge to Britain's cooks to come up with a bangers and mash option for soldiers living on army ration packs out in the field.

Harry, who spent weeks on end surviving on the distinctive brown MoD-issue boxed rations, said: "Bangers and mash with gravy, in a bag, would be brilliant.

"I don't think you can screw that up – I'm sure someone would manage to, but bangers and mash with gravy in a bag would be awesome."

Responding to the suggestion that Jamie Oliver might oblige, he said: "Yeah, Jamie, please."

BAND FOR BROTHERSPrince Harry wears his support for soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan on his wrist. Harry set off for Helmand Province before Christmas proudly wearing a red and blue wristband from the charity Help For Heroes which supports injured servicemen. He is also pictured wearing a second band showing support for his own regiment, the Household Cavalry's deployment to Afghanistan. Producing wristbands has become a tradition for army units preparing to deploy as a way of boosting awareness and raising funds to support families at home.

MAIL SHOT
Prince Harry has called for efforts to get post to soldiers on the front line in Afghanistan faster.

He singled out the issue of mail as critical for morale.

Describing the current distribution system as "pants", he told how he finally received a Christmas card from his father, the Prince of Wales, in February.

Among letters he did receive and treasure was one from his brother William telling him that their mother Diana, Princess of Wales, would be proud of him serving his country.

While troops operating from large bases, such as Camp Bastion, have access to e-mail and the internet, it is those in more remote postings who feel the shortcomings of the postal service most keenly, he said.

ARMED AND READY
Following his time with the Gurkhas in Garmsir, southern Helmand, Prince Harry has rarely been seen without his kukri knife strapped to his back.

The knives are worn by the Royal Gurkha Rifles, the legendary Himalayan soldiers who serve the British crown, of whom the Prince's father, the Prince of Wales, is Colonel in Chief.

The Prince also picked up the occasional souvenir from other UK forces. Despite being a Household Cavalry officer he was filmed on amotorbike wearing a Royal Artillery T-shirt with the slogan: 'Simply the best'.