Your Incredible Neighbors: GV man continues to serve veterans

After three heart bypass operations, a 20-year career in the Navy and a second highly successful career in the computer industry, it’s hard to see why Harry Lyons, 75, would want to spend countless days criss-crossing the country, including regular trips to Washington, D.C., in a new position.

The answer is simple. said Lyons, who was recently elected as the Southwest Regional President of the Fleet Reserve Association, representing an estimated 10,000 retired and active duty members of the Navy, the Marines and the Coast Guard who reside in Arizona, New Mexico, El Paso, Southern California and Las Vegas.

Elected to the post his month at the FRA’s national convention in Corpus Christi, Texas, Lyons will serve as a member of the Association’s national board of directors for 2007-2008, which works with Congress in Washington, D.C. as an advocate for sea service veterans and their families.

“We speak out strongly for our active duty folks; they absolutely have no representation,” Lyons said.

Representing sea service veterans’ interests is a way of life for Lyons because he thinks they very much need representation, particularly now during the war in Iraq.

The top issues for FRA, a congressionally chartered non-profit organization, with a lengthy legislative agenda, is the welfare of families while service personnel are at sea, health care and pay issues for active duty service persons, he said.

“You show me a civilian who is on duty 24/7, 365 days a year, all the time away from their families. Every cent these guys and gals get, they deserve,” he said.

Members of the FRA, an organization with 100,000 members nationwide, regularly meet with House and Senate members, lobbying and testifying on behalf of legislation to aid active duty veterans and their families and serving as advocates for sea service personnel who need help from the Veterans Administration and other agencies.

The FRA’s legislative agenda includes expanding health care options for active, reserve and retired members and their families, increasing active duty pay and education benefits, and safeguarding retiree benefits.

Lyons said his own experience upon returning from service in Vietnam was a factor in his long-term involvement with the FRA, which he joined in 1973. After moving to Green Valley in 1992, he became a charter member of the local FRA Branch 77, serving on the board of directors and working a branch treasurer and branch secretary for more than a decade.

Lyons recalled that when he returned from Vietnam aboard a ship which docked in San Francisco in 1968 “there were people on the bridge who threw trash down on us. We were advised to go ashore in civilian clothes.

“Part of the group who went to Vietnam were badly treated. This was right after the Tet offensive, a stark contrast to the way our troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are treated today, and I’m glad for them,” he said.

Disillusioned and figuring he had paid his dues, Lyons, who also served in Korea, retired from the Navy after his tour of duty in Vietnam as chief petty officer, aviation electronics chief and combat air crew member ended, but kept up his work with the FRA because of his commitment to helping his shipmates.

He started a second career in the computer industry, working 22 years for a company in Los Angeles in marketing and retiring as a vice president.

Meeting regularly with local and national political representatives, Lyons said a key issue for him is extending health care benefits for those veterans who have been brain-damaged and otherwise severely injured by roadside bombs.

He said that oftentimes the full effects of those injuries don’t show up for several years and is working to get health care benefits for those injured extended for five years, rather than the current two.

“That’s the current big issue on the table right now,” he said.

The Fleet Reserve’s local branch currently has about 65 members from Green Valley, Sahuarita and Tubac. Lyons has served as regional chairman of several FRA committees, Americanism-Patriotism, Youth Activities, including the annual Americanism essay contest, and branch chairman of Public Relations, Hospitals and Rehabiliation.

He said he’s deeply concerned that membership in the FRA is declining, along with membership in other military retiree groups.

“It’s been a trend that members of the younger generation really aren’t joiners, but we recruit where we can. All the retired military service organizations are losing members and attrition is generally due to death, and not bringing in new members. I don’t think we‘ll ever see the fervor for joining that we saw after World War II, but I think membership can remain level, status quo, with effective recruiting methods.”

Regarding as an outstanding and dynamic public speaker, Lyons was the guest speaker at the recent Veterans Day services in Green Valley, which, for the first time, was coordinated by the local Fleet Association branch. He also puts out the branch’s monthly newsletter.

He was active in Boy Scouts and served on the Town Council in Simi Valley, Calif.

In Green Valley, he served as treasurer for the St. Francis-in-the-Valley Episcopal Church for 14 years and is proud of the fact that the church today posts a surplus, even after several major additions. He still serves with the church vestry.

He is also a current member and past master of the GV Masonic Lodge.

Lyons and his wife Carol, a registered nurse, have six children. She is heavily involved in volunteer efforts with the St. Andrew’s Children’s Clinic, where she works with pharmacists in evaluating drugs and the hundreds of impoverished patients who come from all over Mexico for free, top-drawer medical treatment.

Lyons expects to put in a busy year in his FRA regional president’s post, noting that his predecessor drove 12,000 miles and flew 6,000 during his tenure, a record Lyons expects to match. He says that he personally plans to visit with all the branches in the region “to find out members’ concerns and take them back with me to Washington.”

Asked why he would take on such an arduous job, Lyons had a quick reply, one rooted in his military and civilian backgrounds, both of which brought him many honors and decorations: “Because I am a leader, a Type A person. I can‘t just sit back and criticize other people when I have the ability to perhaps offer a solution.”

His advice on retirement is as straight-forward as everything else about Lyons: “Get involved with something and don’t sit around and do the old vegetable thing.”

The local branch of the FRA meets the second Tuesday of the month for lunch at the Cow Palace Restaurant. For information on joining, call Lyons at 625-5458—if you can catch up with him, that is!

Kathy Engle is a Green Valley freelance writer. Contact her at kengle@earthlink.net.