Episode #8： Man Stories with Robert Disque
Episode Stats
Summary
Robert Disk is a former Marine and active member of the Art of Manliness community. In this episode, Robert talks about his experience in the military and how it shaped him into a better man. He also talks about how he became a man and the lessons he learned along the way.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here and welcome to another episode of the Art of Manliness podcast. And this week
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we return to our series called Man Stories, where every other week we interview a different
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gentleman and ask him what it means to be a man. And this week, our guest is Robert Disk.
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Well, I thank you for taking the time to speak to us today. And so before we get started,
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Robert, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
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Yeah, sure. Like I said, my name's Robert Disk. My least favorite question is where I'm from
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because I grew up as a Marine Corps brat. So I grew up everywhere. So usually I just say I'm
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currently from, you know, like right now, I'm currently from Ogden, Utah. And I'm a divorced
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All right. And the way I met Robert was he's very active in the Art of Manliness community
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at community.artofmanliness.com. He's really active there and had some great insights. And
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he's, you know, great guy there. And from my understanding, Robert, you are also not only
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an Army brat, but you're also, you also served in the military yourself. Is that correct?
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I did. I did. I actually served in two branches. I joined the Marine Corps way back in 1990,
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right before the Gulf War. And then right after the Gulf War, our president was cutting back the
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Marine Corps. So I was offered to get an honorable discharge or go into the reserve. So I went into
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the reserves and then they disbanded my reserve unit a year or two after that. And so the only,
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the only, um, the only military police unit available in the state at the time was a military
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police unit in the Army National Guard. So I did a lateral transfer and then did the rest of my years
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Wow. Very interesting. Very interesting. Well, Robert, are you ready to get started with the
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All right, Robert. So when did you feel like you became a man?
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Because it makes me think about it because I distinctly remember the time, the date, the
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place, and, uh, Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Marine Corps graduation from bootcamp. I remember,
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uh, I remember feeling to the, you feel like you earn it. Really do. You go through, back
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then it was 13 weeks of hell. So that's, that's what I realized. Just kind of felt it.
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And so do you think the experience you had in the military kind of prepared you for
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You know, it basically set a foundation for just about everything in my life, uh, between
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church and the Marine Corps and my dad, it kind of, it prepared me for just about everything.
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It took everything I taught as a kid because I grew up as a Marine brat. So it was like going
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home when I went to bootcamp and, um, struggles in life, emotional, physical, mental, uh, bootcamp
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just kind of prepares you for it. What they do is they tear you down. I mean, they're really
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emotionally just tear you down and then slowly, but surely they build you up and they build
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you back into a Marine. And then when you get your, get your dress blues on and you're
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walking across that parade ground and you've got four uncles that are former Marines, retired
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Marines and your father, that's a retired Marine. And you think of all the dead grandparents
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that are, uh, were Marines and you just, everything clicks and connects and you just feel like a
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Yeah. I mean, right there, what you described is a perfect example of a rite of passage.
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Yeah. You, you, you go in and you're kind of stripped away from society and you're actually
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kind of initiated in by elder men. In this case, your uncles and your father and everyone
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else who preceded you kind of into manhood. So yeah, that's really interesting.
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Well, even, even in bootcamp, your, your senior drill instructor becomes almost like
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your father, literally. I mean, emotionally you want his, you want his praise. You want
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him to be proud of you and you feel like you've earned his respect when you graduate. So it
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That's really great that you had that experience because one of the things we've talked about
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on the site before is that a lot of men these days, particularly younger men don't have
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And you can actually see it too. I mean, you can see it in their lives, by the way they
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systematically live their lives. You can see by their actions and by their choices, you
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So the Marines and the military is a big part of helping you shape your idea of masculinity
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and kind of bring you into becoming a man. What does manliness mean to you, Robert?
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Well, for me, it was, it's always been knowing and perfecting yourself by embracing
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your manhood. You know, as a kid, you look forward to becoming a man and going through
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all those little things like shaving and, you know, all the little things you look forward
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to going to in my family, it's shaving and hunting and things of that nature. And you
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start getting all these messages from outside of your family unit and from the world, you
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know, and it starts confusing. Like, what are you? You know, even, even, even
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your, your role defined as a boy starts getting confusing. And of course, you've also
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have that little, uh, little thing called, uh, hormones going through puberty, confusing
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the issues a lot more too. And so I was always taught to be the best person you can be, but
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it was always, you know, knowing yourself and perfecting yourself. And once you realize
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what manhood is from the examples around you, that's what you kind of strive to be. And
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that's always, what I was always taught it was, is just being the best man you can be.
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And going on that, you know, looking at the examples of manliness to follow, it kind of
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leads on to our next question. You know, what men in your life, you know, either living,
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dead, you know, even fictional have influenced your views of manliness?
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Well, see, all of my, um, examples kind of coagulate together because my father was a Marine
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and at 17 years old, he joined the Marine Corps and spent five years in Japan. I have
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several brothers and we used to sit around as kids and my dad and my brothers, we would
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watch James Bond movies. And, you know, you, you see James Bond and there's all kinds of
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cool things about him. The boy just loves you got gadgets, you got girls, you got cars, you
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know, all the cool stuff. And that's something that kind of influenced me a lot is not really
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the movies and the characters of James Bond, which did, but doing those things as a bonding
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experience with my dad and with my brothers. And then we also were, were forced to take
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karate at a very young age. And it was different back then than it was today. Back then there
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was no English spoken in our dojo. And sometimes a dojo was a garage in somebody's house. There's
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a lot of things, the rife of passages that you go through in that too, because as the lower
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ranking belts, it's your job after class to bend over in line with wet rag and wipe down
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the dojo floor. That's my biggest memories. But every Saturday we had to spend two hours
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listening to lecture on philosophy, history of karate and things of that nature. So got
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a lot of martial philosophy growing up as a kid. So, and again, my father brought that
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influence of Gitchin Funakoshi into my life that way too. And so Gitchin Funakoshi is a big,
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big influence philosophically. And then my uncles. So I guess everything kind of centers around
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family with me because my uncle Bob, when I was younger, he owned an auto body shop. And
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during, during school year, school days, I worked at his auto body shop and he built custom
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hot rods and show cars and muscle cars. And so I grew up with this, this love of muscle
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cars. And he too was also, you know, a former Marine. And during the summers, my mom and dad
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always felt we needed something to keep us out of trouble and to build our character as
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boys. And so my brothers and I were sent to my uncle's ranch in Arizona. And it's a real
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ranch, not the Billy Crystal kind. You know, everybody gets these romantic ideas. It's like,
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you know, three o'clock in the morning, mixing up 300 bottles, giant baby bottles of calf formula
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and hand feeding them is not romantic or fun. No, no. But my uncle Hank was a cattle rancher. And
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you know, he was a very typical masculine cowboy handlebar mustache, same boots for 30 years,
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same hat for 30 years. Every morning got up, worked the ranch, taught us how to, how to work cattle,
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how to care for them, how to rope, how to ride and hard, hard work. And he was always full of cowboy
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wisdom. Like what kind of cowboy wisdom did he have? Well, just the basic things. Like, you know,
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I mean, I know it's always kind of funny when you say don't squat on your spurs, but it teaches you
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a lesson, especially the first time you do it. It hurts. But a lot of life things, like trusting
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people. He used to pass on little cowboy wisdoms here and there about trusting people. You would
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learn these things, you ingrain them in your lives. And to this day, I automatically trust people
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to a certain point just because of him. You know, even in the days of cynicism and everything,
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I still do. Seeing the good in people was something he always did. He always saw the good in people
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first and then judged them by their actions later as they were lowered down the scale. And so that's,
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that's something we were always taught to do is that people are just like cows. You treat them right,
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you keep them healthy. They'll always be easy to handle and manage. And it's true. It's a little
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simplistic, but it's true. If you treat them right, keep them fed and keep them healthy. They're
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really easy to deal with. You can lead them just about anywhere. So family, the men in your family
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have been the biggest influence in your life. Yeah. That's great. That's another, I think,
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another thing that a lot of men lack these days. Family is not that big in their life. Even if,
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even if they have a father at home, a lot of times the dad's away, busy at work or devoted to other
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things, but not necessarily in their children. And a lot of people these days don't have the luxury
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of living nearby extended family and kind of getting that extra, extra support. You know,
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and I never really realized that before. I don't, I never realized how great I really had it as a boy
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growing up. Seven brothers, dad, uncles, grandparents, you know, they were always there.
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And I never realized that, you know, out of my little, my little box of influence that the world
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outside of mine, there are people that don't have that. Well, Robert, you mentioned your dad a little
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bit, how he's kind of influenced your idea of manliness. Are there any other more specific examples of
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your, you know, the ways your father has influenced your conception of masculinity or manliness?
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You know, there are so many, we don't even have time. You know, as a boy, I saw my dad working as
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a Marine. We'd go visit him on base. We'd bring lunch to him during lunch hour. I watched how he
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was with other Marines and noticed he was different than some of the other Marines, you know, but I saw
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him work his butt off. I saw him take two or three jobs to support all the kids that he had to
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support. So he was a Marine and he worked as a security guard at a medical facility, research
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facility in California. And I remember seeing him come home late at night and thinking, well, I haven't
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seen my dad in a week. And then dad would take the weekend and spend a few hours with us and tell us,
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well, I haven't seen, you know, guys in a while. I'm sorry. So let's go do this. And we'd go, you know,
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go fishing for the day or something like that, or just do something silly. He always worked hard.
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And when we did things around the house, around the property, because my dad had a thing, he grew
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up in the city and my mom grew up in the country. And so he wanted to live in the country all the
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time. So that's where we lived. Every time we moved someplace, we always lived out in the boonies
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and we had cows and pigs and chickens and everything. And my dad's trying to reclaim something that he
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felt he missed out on. And he worked our butts off. We always had to work hard. And, you know,
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you get, you know, I went to the Marine Corps and learned a lot about my dad because I'd go
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through bootcamp where I'd be, you know, in my permanent duty station, like at Camp Pendleton.
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And you see everybody around you. I get these little, little reminders of my dad. Like
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that's a characteristic my dad always taught us. That's part of what my dad is right there.
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You know, and I guess the best way to say his influence was, is that he taught us 90% of
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everything by example. You know, he was a, he was a very strong man, still is. He was always a family
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man. You know, he had eight kids of his own. And then I had an uncle that was debilitated by disease
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and he took his three cousins, my three, three of my cousins, his three sons and adopted them. And
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they grew up like brothers with me. And then my aunt ended up having almost the same exact thing
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that happened to her. She was debilitated and he took her three daughters and adopted them and raised
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them as his daughters. And so I grew up in a huge household.
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And our church, well, yeah, our church had a program to help the Navajos several years ago,
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back in the seventies. And I remember several foster kids coming to the house as a kid, and we were
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always ordered to treat them like family. And that's something we always did. And so, you know,
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we were taught by example that family is important. It's everything. And spirituality, you know, my,
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my father was raised as a strict Lutheran in Pennsylvania. He found religion in another
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religion and was disowned because he joined the, joined the religion and it didn't stop him. And
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he didn't force any religion on, on us as kids either. He always taught us that spirituality,
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was coming to terms with whatever supreme being or higher power you believed in or found
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and coming to terms with it. And that allowed me by, by seeing his example. And, you know,
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I was taught religion and I was taught about God, but I wasn't forced to accept it. It was always out
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there like, well, this is what I believe. And this is what's right. And was never told you'll believe
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this or you'll be punished or any kind of thing like that. And that, that allowed me to make my own
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decision as I discovered different things as I grew up. And so I saw my dad live, live as an
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example. He lived his religion, still does. He still treats families so important. You know,
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he's got 63 grandkids now. He sees all of them. He knows all of them. And that's always been
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important. So as an adult, it's important to me. And I'm one of those unusual cases where I have
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full-time custody of my daughters after my divorce, you know, and I still treat my wife
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with respect because of what I learned from my father. You know, we don't talk bad about mom
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in the house because mom is part of family. It's my daughter's mother. That's something that's just
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kind of ingrained in my life. You know, and then there's silly things like my dad had a policy that
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you break it, you fix it or replace it. And so I can fix almost everything now as an adult because
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of that, because I was forced to fix things or replace things. And as a kid, didn't have the money
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to replace them. So I had to fix them. And there's so many examples I could give you. We could go on
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for hours on this because he just taught by example. And that's exactly how I try to teach
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my kids. And I hope I'm doing okay with that, but I'm not sure yet.
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Well, your dad sounds like quite a man. Robert, you mentioned that you have that kind of unusual
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circumstance where you have full custody of your children after your divorce. And they're all
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So what's that like? I'm sure that's kind of an interesting thing. You grew up in a household of
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boys, and now you're a single dad with three girls. How's that been for you?
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I had to call my mom sometimes, and my mom would say, well, call your sister Cindy. She knows how
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to braid hair. I called my sister who was in Phoenix, and I'd say, Cindy, girls are crying. You know,
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this is when they were much younger. They want me to braid their hair, and I'm a guy. I don't know
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how to braid hair. My sister would sit there and take me through painstaking details over the phone
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how to braid hair. And my mom would call me. If I'd call my mom, I'd be frustrated. Parental
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frustration, typical, I hope, for everybody. And my mom would say, you know what? The problem
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you're having is you're a man. And we're like, what? She goes, I'll let you talk to your dad,
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and he'll tell you what to do about this situation. My dad would get on the phone, and my mom would be
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telling him what to say. And my dad would say, Robert, they're girls. Just accept it. So it's always
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been different. And it's been kind of a struggle, too, because I have a teenager now, which scares
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the tar out of me. But she's 13. She plays volleyball, plays in the jazz band at school.
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And so between music lessons, you know, after-school sports and activities, church and church activities
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and everything, I feel like a soccer mom sometimes. I'm just running back and forth. And it's hard to
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do the whole work thing and the life thing and still keep your kids going. And then my middle
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daughter is 12 years old. And so she's in the same middle school as her older sister.
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I have to be dad. Sometimes I have to be mom sometimes, because mom doesn't spend as much
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time with them. So I have to admit, you know, the only times I've ever had to purposefully
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swallow my masculinity was allowing my daughters to paint my nails and do my hair and put clown
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makeup on me, you know. But it was hard for me. It took weeks for me to say, okay, fine.
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Your mother's not here. Paint my nails. I don't care. You know, and it was actually really
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difficult for me to do something that I was always raised. That's a girl thing. You don't
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do it. And so I had to swallow my masculinity and say, okay, let's be girls. And the teenage
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struggles between parents that always will happen, it was difficult because girls are different.
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And, you know, I can't just look at them and say, man up, but you're crying. You know,
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rub some dirt on it. And I find myself doing that. And then I get this look and it's always
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the same look. I think they learned it from their mother, this rolling of the eyes look
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and then staring at dad. And I have to stop and step back and realize that, okay, I have
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to treat this situation differently because I'm not relating as a girl. I can't, I can't
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get them to relate as a boy. And so that won't ever work. So it was actually very different.
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And it's been very difficult. Um, and, and keeping, keeping their mother and their lives
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is, is a struggle. Sometimes everybody automatically assumes usually that, that, uh, the man's at
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fault in a divorce or if a man's single, it's his fault. He did something wrong. I've had
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people be surprised when they find out, well, yeah, I've got my daughters all week. Sorry,
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I can't do that. I've got to do this or I've got to do that. And people always congratulate
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me on, oh, you're such an involved father. It's like, I don't get that. This isn't what
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fathers do. Yeah. That's just natural for me. So it's been quite the struggle being a single
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dad. Well, maybe this, uh, kind of relates on to our next question. Maybe this is the answer
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to the question I have to ask. What's the hardest thing you've ever done as a man, either emotionally
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or physically or spiritually? You know, I read, I thought about that question. That was actually
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one of the hardest questions to actually think about an answer because I didn't have an answer
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right off the top of my head. Immediately I was thinking, oh, divorce, because it was really
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hard emotionally. But I thought back about it and you're familiar with this because you
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did it. But for two years I gave voluntary full-time service for our church. It was really
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hard because we don't, we didn't watch TV, read the newspaper, listen to the radio, participate
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in all the things that, you know, normal 19 year old kids do. We, uh, separated ourselves
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from the world, went out in the world, we knocked on doors, we taught people about our church,
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we helped people by, by, um, doing service projects and giving service. And that was a
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spiritual, emotional, and mental struggle for me that I grew more in those two years than
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I think I have in the past 30 some odd years. I mean, it was, it was really difficult for
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me, but I would never give that experience up because of what I learned and what I became
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because of it. I agree. Yeah. It made boot camp easier. I'm sure. Honestly, it did. Uh, what,
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what Robert's talking about here, we both served missions for our church. Uh, those of you
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were familiar with the LDS faith, uh, you probably seen, uh, the guys in white shirts
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and ties, uh, knocking on your door and you might run away from them and hide. And, uh,
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that's okay. We understand, but yeah, it really is a life changing experience. And for me,
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that was kind of my rite of passage into manhood, I guess. And I guess for you, it was Marine Corps
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afterwards, but I know for a lot of men, the mission is a rite of passage. Interesting. Well,
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Robert, thank you for your time. I appreciate you, uh, being available for us and answering
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some of these questions. No problem. I enjoyed it. That wraps up another edition of the art
00:21:00.020
of manliness podcast. For more manly tips and advice, make sure to check back at the art of
00:21:04.420
manliness website at art of manliness.com. And remember we got a book on sale too. It's the
00:21:10.000
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or any other major bookstore. And for more information about the book, check out the website at
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art of manliness.com slash the book. And until next week, stay manly.