News

THE MAN CALLED ‘PIC’

By Deborah Horn/SPECIAL TO THE COMMERCIAL
Saturday, November 21, 2009 10:13 PM CST

Deborah Lyons Langford had a bad feeling, a really bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. She was waiting for a CT Scan at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences when she heard about the attack on the Port Authority’s Twin Towers in New York City Sept. 11, 2001.

U.S. Navy Operations Specialist Second Class Nehamon Lyons’ mother, Jewel Lyons, holds his picture while sitting on a bench at Dollarway High School. Special to The Commercial/Deborah Horn

A little later as she was passing by a television showing scenes of the aftermath of American Airlines Flight 77 striking the western side of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. She stopped. She remembered a nearby gentleman say, “’I’ll be damned. If they can get us at the Pentagon, they can get us anywhere.’”

Langford immediately left the Little Rock hospital and returned to Pine Bluff where she joined her close-knit family to wait for word of her first cousin U.S. Navy Operations Specialist Second Class Nehamon Lyons IV, stationed at the Pentagon in the office of the chief of naval operations.

The family waited six days before learning that Lyons had been killed in the Sept. 11 attack on the Pentagon.

A great man

Lyons, called “Pic” by family members, was a quiet, loving youngster who enjoyed music, theatrical performances and reading.

“He was a good child all around,” his Aunt Mamie Gardner remembered.

Later, he grew into a young man who loved to tell jokes but worked hard, whether he was hitting the books or performing a task.

“He was a good man, who volunteered to help others. He was wonderful and I was proud to be his auntie,” Gardner says.

In the Oct. 11, 2001, issue of Stars and Stripes, Lyons’ mother Jewel Lyons said, “He was happy all the time. When you saw him, he was laughing. He could make the saddest moment a happy one.”

Langford, who described Lyons as more like a little brother than cousin, said he was “different. Not in a bad way, but he always wanted the best out of life. He wanted to finish school when many others were dropping out, and he wanted to be a doctor.”

In 2008, his seventh-grade teacher Bob Lamb would write about Lyons, “You were a good seventh-grade student. You did well and made your family proud with your accomplishments.”

Gardner said she remembered the red and white of Lyons’ high school band uniform at Dollarway High School: He played the drums, and she said one night stood out in particular. Lyons was ready to get on the field, and told her, “We’re going to play them off the field tonight.”

“And they did,” she said.

“I like to remember him that way — young, vibrant, full of life,” Gardner said.

Lyons graduated from Dollarway High School in 1989 — his class recently gathered for its 20-year class reunion — and the next year moved to Mobile, Ala., where he studied medicine at the University of South Alabama and worked several part-time jobs to cover tuition.

His uncle Ledester Racy loves to tell this story about Lyons. While Lyons was working for SAAD Healthcare, transporting food, taking senior shut-ins to the doctor and other services, he was as dependable as clockwork, even delivering a meal to an 80-year-old woman during a hurricane. Instead of rushing off, he sat with her until her fears subsided.

“That’s just how Pic was,” Langford explained.

It wasn’t long before Lyons called to say he had joined the Navy. Not only was his aunt surprised but so was Langford.

“School is so expensive and the military will pay for school,” she said about the reason he gave the family for his 1997 enlistment.

It wasn’t long before Lyons told Langford that he loved the military and wanted a desk at the Pentagon. However, his first assignment was on the U.S.S. Gettysburg.

EN2 Darren McDaniel wrote in September, “I also served with Petty Officer Lyons on board the Gettysburg. He was a great individual, and I will never forget him. He never let his spirit down, and it was hard not to like the man.”

More than three years ago, David Olsen said, “I served with Lyons on the USS Gettysburg as well, and Lyons was always a joy to be around. He was always a hard worker, and willing to go the extra mile.

The Pentagon portrayed Lyons as “a self-starter who would pursue a goal and work tirelessly to achieve it.”

His superiors also described him this way: “Nehamon had a broad smile that greeted everyone and immediately put them at ease. His eager eyes assured you that he was listening and learning while you talked with him. In his absence, when people he met or worked with speak of him, the same theme is repeated: He was such a nice young man and would do anything you asked him to.

At the 20th year reunion Tyrone Butler, a U.S. Marine who had left the Pentagon less than a week before the 9-11 attack, said, “You couldn’t say anything bad about him.”

In January 2001, Lyons transferred to the Pentagon.

Langford remembered teasing Lyons at the time, saying, “Your next stop will be the Oval Office.”

Lyons, she continued, “was excited about life, and had an instant connection with people. He was a special person. Once you met him, you would never forget him.”

“He was the best,” Gardner said.

A heartbreak

No call came from Lyons that September morning, so Langford tried calling Barbara Lyons Moody, their first cousin, a U.S. Navy Master Chef who was also stationed at the Pentagon.

The bright, sunny morning turned into a long afternoon and night.

“The phone lines were all messed up,” so it was a while before Langford talked with Moody, who said she would go to his room but was certain he was out of town for training.

Nonetheless, Langford says she had a nagging feeling. “I drove straight to my mother’s house without having the (UAMS medical) procedure.”

It wasn’t until the next morning that someone from the military called Langford’s cell phone (the number was stored in the memory of Lyons’ phone.)

The woman asked for family information, such as names and addresses, and within the hour, the military showed up at the front door of Jewel Lyons’ house.

“We were told he was MIA (missing in action),” Langford recalls.

The military was searching the hospitals — there were patients from the Pentagon who couldn’t be identified, the family was told.

However, six days later, the military personnel came back and told the family that they had DNA evidence proving the 30-year-old Navy man had died in the attack.

“We weren’t prepared,” Langford says.

This is what his mother told the Washington Post, which is now posted on their America At War-The Human Toll Website, shortly after Lyons was killed: “The necklace is white gold, and he wore it all the time when he wasn’t on duty. The Pentagon sent it to me. They cleaned it up the best they could. They also sent one of his pins that he wore on the ship, and a dime. That’s all they had. I put his medal on the shelf and I keep the necklace in a box on my dresser. I keep it close to me.”

A legacy

Try Googling Nehamon Lyons and there are some 10,200 hits. There are official Pentagon, military, 9-11 memorial page, newspaper and many, many more sites.

At the recent Dollarway High School reunion, class members took time from the festivities to remember a favorite classmate. They gathered outside the Dollarway High School principal’s office and lit candles, presenting an American flag-backed bench to the school as well as a plaque of Lyons for the office.

“That’s Dollarway,” Langford said, when asked if she was surprised by the outpouring of support at the reunion. “I think this is the closest school in Pine Bluff.”

Jewel Lyons, along with Langford and Gardner attended the reunion, and at the time, Jewel Lyons said she appreciated the gestures that had been done in her son’s honor.

In addition to the bench and plaque, there’s a scholarship named in honor of Lyons. The American Transportation Corp. of Conway awards a Dollarway graduate each year a $1,000 scholarship.

Nehamon Lyons IV was born March 4, 1971, in Pine Bluff, and is survived by his mother, Jewel Lyons; sister, Sonya; and brothers, Rodney, Corey, Marquise and Christian; as well as his cousin Deborah Lyons Langford and other extended family.

Print this story   |   Email this story