Capt. Dana Lyon, the widow of Capt. David Lyon, swings a champagne bottle to christen the ship named for her late husband on Aug. 11, 2014. (U.S. Air Force photo / Tech. Sgt. Jason Robertson)
The Navy and Air Force honored a fallen airmen on Wednesday by officially naming a ship after him.
Motor Vessel Capt. David I. Lyon is an Air Force pre-positioning vessel, named for a logistics readiness officer from Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado. Lyon was killed Dec. 27, 2013, when a car bomb struck his convoy in Afghanistan.
Lyon graduated from the Air Force Academy — where he met his future wife Dana — in 2008, and even high-fived President George W. Bush as he walked across the stage at the ceremony. He volunteered to deploy to Afghanistan as an air adviser in October 2012.
Capt. Dana Lyon was also deployed, and they both served in Afghanistan when David was killed. They were last together on Christmas Day 2013 at Bagram Airfield.
The Motor Vessel Capt. David I. Lyon docked at Miliitary Ocean Terminal Sunny Point, Southport, N.C, before the vessel’s christening, Aug. 11, 2014. (U.S. Air Force photo / Tech. Sgt. Jason Robertson)
“Neither one of us held the other back from what we were trying to achieve,” she said in an August release about the christening. “”I think that if Dave had to do it over again, he’d do it again in a heartbeat because he knew what he was doing was making a difference.”
Capt. Dana Lyon christened the ship Aug. 11, 2014 in Southport, North Carolina.
Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James and Navy Secretary Ray Mabus held the official naming ceremony Jan. 14 at the Pentagon. Capt. Dana Lyon and her parents were in attendance.
The ship transports 12.5 million pounds of munitions, or as much as 78 fully-loaded C-17 Globemaster II aircraft, overseas. Its mission began last fall in South Korea. On Jan. 17, it is scheduled to hoist anchor and set sail for Japan and other Far East ports for Air Force ammunition retrograde operations.
“It’s kind of like he’s come full circle,” she said. “Dave never got a chance to work supply, and now, a supply ship is named after him. Even though he is gone, his life, his purpose, his mission will continue.”
