Bengals rookie defensive tackle Landon Robinson, their first service academy draft pick and Navy All-American who has been called "Big Man," by the President of the United States, personifies this month's NFL Salute to Service.

Rarely can a team turn to one of their own to honor the rest.

Although Robinson has yet to make his NFL debut this season, he's already had a powerful impact on the Bengals with his exhaustive work effort on the practice field and on the fans with his inspiring weekly arrival to games while wearing his Marine Corps uniform of the day.

Before the team left for Madrid and Sunday's game (1 p.m.-Cincinnati’s Channel 5 and NFL Network) against the Falcons, Robinson sat down with Bengals.com senior writer Geoff Hobson for his perspective on service in this week's conversation.

The Conversation

GH: How did Navy come to be for you?

LR: I always watched the Army-Navy game as a kid. I  watched it two or three times growing up. I just remember always saying, man, those guys, they must be really good at football because they're in the military and they get to play football. That's like the coolest combo ever.

But I didn't know much about the academy. I remember watching the games, but didn't know much about the academy itself. As I went through high school, I got about 30 FCS offers. I was getting football offers really late because I played a lot of sports in high school and really didn't focus on football until late. And then COVID hit and it was kind of late there and I just kind of sent my film out through Twitter. So it just started to build and build and build.

And I was looking for a school that had good morals where I would grow and had good academics. And originally, I chose Lehigh University because they're a great school academically, a private school, and it had some good football, right? So I was like, this is a great school. So I always think that more than football is what I was looking for. Football is good, but I always wanted something that would help me later on down the line, because they always say it's a 40-year decision, not a four-year decision, right?

After I committed to Lehigh, Coach Volker, P.J. Volker (a Cincinnati native), who's on the Ravens, he's a safeties coach now, reached out to me. He was a (Navy) linebackers coach at the time, and he reached out. He was like, "Hey, man, I really like your film. The academy is something that's not like any other place,' and I was like, "What is it all about?' So my mom and I got on a Zoom call with him, and he just went over all the benefits of it. The things that you learn, the people you meet, and just the experiences. And I just saw how unique it was, and that it wasn't like any other school in the country. And I was thinking, that's the type of school I want to go to, and a place that I will really be a different person once I'm done. Not just the same person or some place that's not going to challenge me. So I thought the academy was perfect, and I'm glad that I went.

GH: Does it heighten your sense of what service is all about?

LR:  No doubt. Yeah. I think it heightened my professionalism as a person. Obviously, academics are very challenging, so I'm a lot smarter now. Good habits that can take me on later in life, and I think the relationships, too. People I've met are people who are going to be Navy SEALS and going to be Marines and go fly planes. People who are going to do some super cool things. Just having those relationships and being able to bounce ideas off of them, and you can talk to them on a daily basis. You are a reflection of people that you are around, surround yourself with, and being surrounded by those people innately develops you as a person. That's a small look at what makes the academy so great.

GH: Is there anybody who is there, a soldier, sailor, an officer who kind of inspired you?

LR:  No doubt. What they call the second class year, it's really a junior year. During the summer before your senior year, so the end of my second class year, if you want to become a Marine, you have to go do a summer training called Leatherneck, and that's like Marine Corps training. And in order to select the Marine Corps, you have to do that.

It's a three-week course, and you go to Leatherneck, and you're around Marines, and you're pretty much a Marine for three weeks, and you're learning in the Marine Corps how to become an officer in that space, how to survive in the wild, how to lead Marines. It was the coolest experience I've ever had.

Major Ball, Major Geoffrey Ball, he was one of the most inspiring officers I've ever been around. At first, all the officers, they come to the academy and they kind of tell you about Leatherneck and that you need to do this in order to become a Marine and all this stuff, and it's very intimidating and I just remember the first day he showed up and he had these blacked-out shades on and he was super muscular and I was like, man, this guy, this guy is hardcore.

And I remember him talking to us and kind of giving us a simulation of something that we do over at Leatherneck. They call it Effects, which is where you're out in the wild, you're out in the woods, and you're performing different leadership activities to help us achieve a task. And I remember him walking us through one. When you're first there, you're like, "What's going on?" You're talking through different squads. 'The squads go here and move here and make open for this squad.' So it's real tactical. And I remember he was just talking through it. He's like, "You know, by the end of Leatherneck, you're going be able to do this. And I'm super excited for you guys to embark on this journey,' and he was just super helpful and motivating the entire time. He's an officer I look up to a lot.

GH: Why did you choose the Marines?

LR: It's funny because it's so like football. It's not football, but it reminds me so much of football. And because it's a team. When you're on a ship, the Navy, it's still great service, and you still get to lead people. But it's more about your ship versus leading people, right? And the Marines, it's all about people. It's about how to develop people to be the most effective people they can in order to go and work together to achieve a task, and that's what football is.

And I remember while we were at Leatherneck, so many times they talked about football. They literally pulled up football film, and it's funny because for the football players of the academy, we were so busy that all of us had to go to Leatherneck at the same time. So we were all in the same section together, and they started talking about football. Oh man, this is literally just like football, Leatherneck. So a lot of similarities in terms of elite people.

Everyone's different in different ways, and making sure that you're developing them to be the most effective people they can is just like the Marine Corps. So I just saw the similarities in the locker room environment as you're all together out there in the woods. It's very football-like.

GH: If you didn't play football but went to the academy, do you wonder what you'd be doing now?

LR: I always told my roommate this.  I'm not hardcore, but I definitely have a lot of respect for the guys that do the hard stuff, like the Navy SEALs. So I probably would have taken that route, or at least pursued that route a lot more. My roommate ended up selecting that. I look at him every day, and he's one of the coolest guys ever.

GH: Did he play football?

LR: No, no, no football. Those types of services, you can't really play a sport while doing that.  Unless it's like wrestling or soccer or something where it's high cardio. You can't be 300 pounds and try and go be a SEAL. It's just not going to work out.

GH: You would have lost the weight.

LR: I would have, yeah. I would have been very trim and I would have been running every day. My roommate trained his whole life for that. So that's something that I'm super proud of him. I probably would have done something special forces-related.

GH: Have you met some service personnel since you've been in the league?

LR: I have. I have. There's been a lot of officers that have reached out since I've been in the NFL. Just guys that are around the area, and I'll meet up with them and just kind of talk with them. A lot of academy grads have reached out and been like, "Hey, I'm from Cincinnati. If you ever need a place to stay, let me know.' That's what the academy is all about. You all go through the same things. No matter what year you graduated, the experience is so similar.

That's why they reach out. Like, hey, come over to my place if you want. If you need something, let me know. It's such a brotherhood and like a sisterhood, and it's an amazing place. So yeah, I've heard from a bunch of people, and when I see the flyovers, it's so cool, and it just reminds me of the academy. Reminds me of Army-Navy, really. Yeah, the Army-Navy game is such a big display of that.

GH: It sounds like it still hangs with you. That's probably the first military thing you saw. An Army-Navy game when you were a kid, probably like we all did.

LR: But never in person. And you see those flyovers; it's like nothing else in the world. So it's super cool.

GH: How many guys met the President of the United States on the field right before the Army-Navy game?

LR: That's true. That's true. I got a chance to meet him three times, which is really cool. Went to the White House twice, and then I met him on the field before the Army-Navy game.

GH:  I know you met him at the White House.  For what?

LR: We won the CIC twice. They call it the Commander in Chief Trophy. My junior year, senior year, we  won, both, and then I saw him on the football field. I think, he remembered me on the field, which is pretty cool. He was like, "Hey, big man, how you doing?" It was funny. I remember talking to him at the White House the first time, and I got a chance to speak on the podium.

So you spoke on the podium twice. And how about the President of the United States calling you big man?

LR: It's cool. It's very cool. It's a unique experience not a lot of people get. I still remember the first time that we went to the White House, and they have a ceremony, and they walk through the ceremony. But they didn't tell us that the president was going to call people out. And I remember we're all on the stage and it's on TV and we're in our uniforms and I'm kind of off to the side. I'm like a junior, let the seniors take the spotlight and he's talking through the game. And he's like, 'We got this guy, the quarterback did this. the receiver did this. He was like, oh, we had this defensive lineman, Landon Robinson. He ran this fake punt, and he rumbled down the field. And he's like, where's Landon at? And he called me up on the  podium, and he says, "You want to say anything?' And I was like, why not? So I remember that, and that was super crazy.

GH: What did you say?

LR: It's probably on YouTube somewhere. But I was just like, I just want to thank my coaches and thank my teammates for all the hard work they put in throughout the year. It's definitely not easy to win the trophy. And thank you, Mr. President, for allowing us to be here. It's pretty much what I said.

GH: Then you represented the team the next year. He didn't have to call you up.

LR: I gave him a gift on the stage at that time. We gave him a helmet, and then we gave him, I think, a football. Another football, and then a helmet. He was excited.

GH: What's your favorite uniform to wear? You basically wear one to every game. But you don't have seven uniforms, do you?

LR:  We do have a lot of uniforms, but they're all seasonal. There's eight or nine Marine Corps uniforms. Three or four of them are for the warmer months, and then the rest of them are like for colder months. More long sleeves, stuff like that.

GH: Favorite? What's the long coat?

LR: They call them overcoats for the weather when it's cold out. Yeah, we do have those.

GH: The one you wore to the opener, it looked Navy.

LR: Opening day, yeah, that was Marine Corps. It was black. They call them service dress blues. Those are the really formal. I love those. The service dress blues. I only wore that to the opener so far, and those are definitely my favorite.

GH: Because it was the opener?

LR: Yeah, the opener.  It was a very formal event. Exactly. There's another really cool one that I'm going to break out soon. It's like a green one, but that's for events that are cold out. So I'll wear that later. But yeah, I love the blues. Those are really good. We wore those to graduation, and they're really sweet.

GH: You wear the unis on the plane too, right?

LR:  I wear them on the plane and then to the games.

GH: But you don't wear them after the game, right?

LR:  No, at Navy we just wear them to the game, and then after the game, OK, we're good. Wear something else.

GH: Do you pack it yourself?

LR: I pack it. Put it in my little bag and just carry it with me.

GH: What are you going to wear to the game in Madrid?

LR: Oof, Madrid. Oof. I might have to break out my second favorite. They call them the Charlies. They call them service Charlies. They're green, really cool, really formal. They like an overcoat kind of deal. It's sweet, so I'll probably wear that.

GH: Do you have a favorite person in Navy history?

LR: I was a cyber guy, so I didn't take like a whole lot of history classes. We're like real basic history. For your first year, your freshman year, you take real basic classes. Everyone takes the same classes, like the same history, same English, all the math. Everyone has to take calculus 123, physics 123.

But then your second year, you get your major, and so I went the cyber route. My roommate, he was a big history guy. We just learned about so many different World War II people and people in Vietnam and over in Afghanistan, so many people. Like Travis Manion, he has a foundation that's real big at the Academy. Pat Tillman, all those guys are just really just war heroes that give the ultimate sacrifice.

GH: Had you studied Tillman at all before you came to the Bengals with the Pat Tillman Draft Pick?

LR: I took a class where we did a case study on him and learned about his story and what he did in the NFL and made the decision to go serve. When I saw I got drafted 226, "Wow, that is crazy."

LR: I always tell people service is the ultimate form of love. Either that's you for your family, for your team, for your country. It's something that a lot of people should recognize. And those people go and serve, and they come back, and it's like sometimes like nothing even happened. They just spent all this time and energy and sacrifice to go over there, and I think it's really cool that the NFL highlights that and shows they care for it.

GH: I know you want to play something like 15 years …

LR: That's the goal.

GH: So after you're done playing, do you still belong to the service?

LR: They always say Once a Marine, always a Marine, so that's like a slogan, but my commitment is a 10-year reserve commitment in the Marine Corps. I think I probably can do more if I wanted to be in the reserves, or I can go back to active duty, and start that. I don't know what my future holds, but once a Marine, always a Marine.