UNICEF, Mets on tap for British prince in NYC

[June 26, 2010]  NEW YORK (AP) -- Britain's Prince Harry showed he can shoot. On the second day of his U.S. visit, New Yorkers get to see his arm.

After firing an M4 rifle during a training exercise Friday at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Harry was scheduled to throw out the first pitch at Saturday's New York Mets game against the Minnesota Twins.

Earlier Saturday he was scheduled to visit UNICEF and attend a briefing on the U.N. agency's use of mapping technology to respond to crises.

The prince, the younger son of Charles, Prince of Wales, and the late Diana, Princess of Wales, began his three-day visit at West Point.

Harry, third in line to the British throne, arrived by helicopter, uniformed in camouflage. He hopped on the back of a Humvee, swapped his light blue beret for a helmet and headed out for live-fire exercises on the firing range and field exercises in nearby woods.

Harry fired an M4 along with a team of West Point cadets involved in a firing range training exercise. He and the cadets shot at pop-up silhouette targets anywhere from 50 to 300 meters away.

Crouched in the gravel and then later lying down, Harry had to hit the enemy targets but refrain from shooting at the yellow-banded friendlies. Col. Casey Haskins said he did quite well, hitting multiple targets.

The prince changed into a dark suit for a reception later Friday for British and American veterans and their families at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum.

Harry said it was "a bit of a pinch-yourself moment" to stand on the flight deck of the Intrepid, a historic aircraft carrier docked on Manhattan's West Side. He said Britain and the U.S. must forge stronger links between their military veterans.

"We in Britain can learn from the American culture of charity and from the great pioneering work in the fields of care, prosthetics and rehabilitation of your universities, hospitals and other organizations," he said. "In turn, I hope we can offer some inspiring examples of our own."

Harry attended the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst and is a lieutenant in the British Army. He served in Afghanistan in 2008 as a battlefield air controller until a media leak cut his time short.

He has made no secret of his desire to return to the front lines, and the decision last month by British Army commanders to train him as an Apache attack helicopter pilot could make that more likely.

After Saturday's Mets game, Harry was scheduled to attend a country club reception in Greenwich, Conn., and promote his charity, Sentebale, which provides support to orphans and vulnerable children in Lesotho, an impoverished African nation whose inhabitants have one of the shortest average life expectancies in the world.

On Sunday, Harry will walk with wounded veterans participating in a road race through Central Park. He also plans to participate in the third annual Veuve Clicquot Polo Classic on Governors Island, in New York Harbor.

The polo event will benefit American Friends of Sentebale, the U.S. arm of the global charity co-founded by Harry.

[Associated Press; By KAREN MATTHEWS]

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