Son Charles can peer through a knothole, suffering no loss of depth perception.
The Prince of Wales served in the British military for five years. In the mid 1970s, he was the dashing young helicopter pilot that his sons have emulated.
Britain was at peace at the time so he was never called on to fight for his country. But if a combat situation had developed, his job was to deliver Royal Marine commandos to and from battle. And even in peacetime, men doing that job lost their lives in training accidents.
He finished his active Naval career in command of a small minesweeper, which is today known to have been engaged in spying activities against the Soviet Union using the fact the he was in command as part of their cover to suggest that it wasn't really doing anything important.
I have known the Prince for nearly fifty years - ever since he was sent from the UK to Australia to attend the same school as me. We met again, briefly, while we were both Naval officers. Later I served more extensively with his younger brother, the Duke of York, and through him, have become a friend of the Prince of Wales as well. It honestly saddens me that people seem to have accepted the caricature of him that has been largely created by the left wing media who also tend to ignore any speech or statement he makes unless it agrees with their beliefs, meaning many people only ever hear of him talking about things like the environment and never hear about him talking about the plight of veterans and the need to support them, and certainly never hear about the speeches where he speaks out in detail about the oppression of Christians in the Middle East.
There's a lot of misinformation about him spread around. He's certainly far from a perfect person, but he's nothing like the one the media has tried to make him out to be. He's a patriot. He's a Christian. He's a gun owner and a shooter. On most issues, he's a conservative - and these are probably all part of the reason why they have done their best to turn him into a joke.
He won't defend himself. He probably wouldn't like me doing it. He accepts all this in life as part of his duty to his country and to the Commonwealth - a duty he never asked for, but that he has nonetheless decided to do to the best of his ability until the day he dies. And he's lived his entire life knowing that the only way he can ever fully reach his potential is for a person he dearly loves to die. Yes, he's a bit strange at times. With his life, I think most of us would be.