Prince Harry Hits Sandhurst

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.Whatever the reason, Phillips says, Harry's been a public relations problem for a family that doesn't need another one.

Sandhurst, says former palace press secretary Dickie Arbiter, should fix that: "I don't think he'll be a public relations problem once he gets into Sandhurst and he knuckles down. They'll show him no quarter there."

The latter sentiment was echoed by Maj. Gen. Andrew Ritchie, the Sandhurst College Commandant: "He would not expect to be treated any differently, and we certainly will not treat him any differently. He will stand or fall on his own merits as a young cadet."

Sandhurst may not cut Harry any slack, but people who know the prince say the public should.

They point out that Harry has shown a good side, too, packing tsunami aid boxes, for example.

Harry himself has said he wants to be doing "exactly what any normal British person would be doing. We're not exempt from what everybody else does."

"But," says Colleen Harris, a former press secretary to princes, "they are…human, and I think that's the lovely thing about William and Harry that we have seen a lot of that, which we haven't seen in the past with the royal family: They are just normal boys with normal feelings, normal expectations, normal dreams, hopes, just the same as everyone else. "

But, Phillips remarks, they are young men in extraordinary circumstances.

"They get it wrong sometimes," Harris adds.

For the next while, Maj. Gen. Ritchie, Harry's new commanding officer, will be trying to make sure Harry gets it right: "We often say that many of the young men and women who arrive here have been used to working for four hours and sleeping for 20, and we generally reverse that."

There's a lot about Harry it's hoped Sandhurst will reverse, Phillips says.

The Sandhurst regime is a tough one, especially for the first five weeks, where it's 6 a.m. starts, lots of boot polishing and uniform ironing. And cadets are not supposed to leave the grounds and, in what Phillips says may be toughest of all for Harry, they're not supposed to consume any alcohol.