Prince Harry Hits Sandhurst

Royal Known For PR Gaffes Enters British Army's Academy

(CBS)  For Britain's Prince Harry, the uniform has always been the thing, observes CBS News Correspondent Mark Phillips.

There's the uniform he wore in the cadet corp at Eton, the posh English private school he went to.

Then, the uniform he'll be wearing at Sandhurst, the British Army officer training college he's now entered, some say not a moment too soon.

And of course, the Hitler Youth uniform he decided to wear to that famous costume party, the one that ended up on all the front pages.

That, Phillips reports, is one of the reasons Prince Harry's entry into Sandhurst has been so welcome. A little military discipline, a little time out of the public eye, might just be what young Harry needs.

"All he has to do all his life is not dress up as a Nazi. That is the only stipulation for the second son," notes Sunday Times columnist A.A. Gill.

Harry's reputation, Gill points out, hasn't just been earned at costume parties, but in scuffles with press photographers while falling out of clubs late at night. Yes, it's the army for Harry.

"Harry's got the army or nothing, because he's not a rocket scientist, Harry, bless him. He's basically got the army, or Harry could run a bar. Harry's bar," laughs Dominik Diamond, a columnist for The Star.

But seriously, the army does make a lot of sense for a kid like Harry, if only because it seems to be what he's always wanted.

Says royals watcher Ingrid Seward of Majesty Magazine: "I went to see Diana shortly before she died, and one thing we talked a lot about was the children. And she was explaining to me Harry's always loved the military. As a kid, he used to dress up in army clothes. …That's what he wanted to do from the age of 5."

Harry, the pop psychologists will tell you, displays classic second-child syndrome, made all the more obvious when it's second prince syndrome and your mother was Princess Diana.