Posted on June 16, 2025

A Lightning fighter jet at King Khalid Air Base, Saudi Arabia – where a boyhood was forged in dust, discipline, and the shadows of giants.

If I could return to any point in my life, it wouldn’t be the easy days—it would be the formative ones. The hot days. The strange days. The days when everything smelled of jet fuel, dust, and possibility.
It would be Saudi Arabia, 1974 to 1979.
A long way from Suffolk—but nowhere has ever felt more like home.

My father had taken a job at King Khalid Air Base, near Khamis Mushait, close to the Yemeni border. We flew out in ’74, and I spent my childhood living on that base. It was more than a place. It was a world.

A world of order and ceremony.
Of men who carried war stories in their posture.
Of discipline and strength—and sometimes, silence too deep for a boy to understand.

A Front-Row Seat to Power

From a young age, I watched strength walk in uniform. These weren’t men who posted about toughness or shouted about dominance. They were men forged by something real.
Some had fought in World War II—like my grandmother’s brother, a bomber pilot who’d been shot down, taken prisoner, and survived the death marches.

To a boy, they seemed untouchable. Immoveable.
I saw them and thought that was what it meant to be a man.
Strong. Silent. Stoic. Always in control—or, at the very least, pretending to be.

And so I copied what I could. The walk. The voice. The temper.

The Imitation Game

By my teenage years, I was what you might call a shadow of strength.
Loud. Reactive. Explosive.
All fire, but no aim.

I mistook loudness for strength, and fury for power.
I copied the form of masculinity, but I hadn’t yet learned the function.

I didn’t need an enemy—I was the battlefield.

Then the Military Taught Me Otherwise

I thought I was ready when I joined. I wasn’t.
But the military doesn’t care who you think you are.
It cares who you become.

I learned quickly that real strength isn’t uncontrolled power—it’s restrained power.
That shouting is easy; listening is the true challenge.
That winning an argument is nothing compared to preventing one.

The army became my forge.
There, I was broken, tested, reformed.
Not to destroy the fire within me—but to teach me how to tend it.

The Gentleman Emerges

The soldier in me carved out the gentleman.

It wasn’t just about standing tall—it was about knowing why you’re standing.
Discipline replaced defiance.
Honour replaced bravado.
History, manners, responsibility—these became my guiding principles.

I learned how to negotiate, how to lead without shouting, how to carry myself not just with strength—but with purpose.

Masculinity, as I came to understand it, had nothing to do with posturing.
It had everything to do with presence. A quiet, unshakable presence.

The Road Behind. The Path Ahead.

Looking back now, I see clearly: I wasn’t born a gentleman. I was moulded—by fire, by failure, by father figures, and by the harsh teachers of consequence and conflict.

But I was also blessed—blessed to grow up at the edge of the world, under a desert sun, where the line between chaos and order was walked daily by the men I admired.

That place—Khamis Mushait—was more than a home.
It was a crucible. A mirror reflecting both my boyhood and the man I am becoming.

And what I see in it now is a boy trying to be strong—
—and a man who is finally learning how.

Final Reflection

In the end, I have come to understand that true strength is not about posturing or shouting. It is about discipline, humility, and purpose.
The boy I once was sought to mimic power; the man I am becoming seeks to embody it—with quiet resolve.

The journey from dust and discipline to dignity and grace is ongoing. But I am grateful for every lesson along the way.
For in the fires of my youth, I was forged—
not just as a soldier,
but as a gentleman.

“A soldier was forged in fire, but a gentleman emerged from the embers.”
— Dusty Wentworth