Richard Lyon, pioneering Navy SEAL and Oceanside mayor, dies at 93

Feb. 7, 2017 6:40 PM PT

He was a “naked warrior” during World War II and Korea, a spy in China, a bull frog and a SEAL, a father nine times over, a philanthropist, a pilot, a skipper of the sailboat Ichthus, a mayor, a husband, a scratch golfer, a proud recipient of the “Golden Diaper” award, a Republican and one of the greatest surfers to ride Oceanside’s waves.

Retired Rear Adm. Richard “Dick” Lyon, the first Navy Sea, Air and Land team reservist to become a flag officer, died Friday from age-related renal failure at his beachfront home in Oceanside, the city that he led as mayor between 1992 and 2000. He was 93.

Called the modern Forrest Gump by his children because of his legendary life, he was known by war-hardened commandos for his stern demeanor in the face of danger and by his family as a God-fearing joker who toiled to make life better for the neediest of kids as a founding trustee of Children’s Hospital in Orange County.

“We used to say that there are bold demo men and there are old demo men, but there aren’t any old and bold demo men. Well, Dick proved us all wrong. He was old and bold and full of life until the day he died,” said retired Rear Adm. Garry Bonelli, a longtime friend of Lyon’s and the commander of SEAL Team 5 during Operation Desert Storm in 1991.

Mr. Lyon was born on July 14, 1923 in Anaheim to Norman and Ruth Lyon.

A record-breaking swimmer, he was selected for the U.S. Olympic team for the 1940 games in Tokyo, but they were canceled because of World War II.

He then entered Yale University. Graduating in 1944, he went to Columbia University Midshipman School in New York. There he saw a poster seeking strong swimmers interested in volunteering for a special warfare unit tasked with the demolition of explosives.

Mr. Lyon joined the Scouts and Raiders, the forerunners of today’s SEAL teams, and learned the art of the “naked warrior” — sneaking onto enemy beaches with only a K-Bar knife stuck in his web belt and blowing up sea mines.

Believed to be one of the first commandos to walk on Japanese soil in the wake of the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he often told family and friends the story of meeting a small group of Japanese on the beach in the Prefecture of Wakayama. One of the villagers spoke fluent English and told Mr. Lyon that he had been educated at Harvard University. Mr. Lyon cracked, “My heart goes out to you because Yale always beats Harvard at football.”

“He was an honorable man with the highest of ethics, a man of immense integrity, but he also had a great sense of humor,” said his wife, Cindy.

Released from active duty in 1946, he joined the 7th Fleet in Shanghai as a staff scout intelligence officer. Assigned to northern China to spy on Mao Zedong’s revolutionary army, he filed reports from the Shandong Peninsula as that nation collapsed deeper into civil war.

In 1951, shortly after he finished his first year in Stanford University’s Masters of Business Degree program, he was recalled to active duty for the Korean War. He became a plank owner as the original commissioning member of Underwater Demolition Team 5.

Working above the 38th Parallel in Wonsan, a strategic harbor city besieged by communist forces, Mr. Lyon was ordered to help destroy a new type of anti-submarine mines. In frigid conditions and often dodging enemy fire, Mr. Lyon would swim under a mine, sever its tether with bolt cutters and then float it to a shore position held by United Nations forces.

He and his team later prowled inside enemy lines, blowing up railroads and tunnels — part of an evolution in Navy doctrine that would create the modern SEAL method of waging war.

After the Korean War, Mr. Lyon finished his Stanford studies and began a successful career in retail and financial management as a member of the National Association of Securities Dealers in Newport Beach.

He also remained in the Navy reserves and became a fixture in Coronado’s burgeoning Naval Special Warfare community.

“He was one of the most impressive men I’ve ever met,” said Doug Allred, a former officer in Underwater Demolition Team 11. “It was 1961 and he was a reservist. This old man shows up at our unit and asked if he could go out with us.

“By golly, we were swimming and diving and doing all these hard things and he was destroying all of us young guys.”

In 1975, the Navy promoted Mr. Lyon to rear admiral, the first SEAL reservist to be named a flag officer. Three years later, the Navy recalled him to active duty to become the deputy chief of Navy Reserve. While serving in that post, he received the title of “Bull Frog 1,” an honor bestowed on the sailor who had served in Naval Special Warfare forces the longest.

He met Cindy Gisslin, a registered nurse a quarter century his junior, and married her in 1976.

“And that’s how he was awarded the Golden Diaper award,” she said. “He was still in his 50s when he started having children and one day they presented him with this diaper. It had been spray painted, folded like you do a flag into a triangle. It was supposed to honor the oldest active-duty member with the youngest child.

“He laughed about it.”

A graduate of the National War College and the Naval War College, Mr. Lyon became the first Reserve officer to be appointed to the United States Naval Institute’s board of directors.

Founder and trustee president of Children’s Hospital in Orange County, Mr. Lyon also served on the board of directors of Girl Scouts of Orange County Council and was president of the Anaheim Rotary Club in 1965-66.

In 2013, he received the Yale Athletics George H.W. Bush Lifetime of Leadership Award.

A former member of the Oceanside Planning Commission and president of the board of the Oceanside Unified School District, Mr. Lyon was elected mayor of Oceanside in 1992. He won re-election in 1996 and retired four years later.

The waning months of his administration were marked by clashes with political foes on the City Council.

They moved to replace him on the San Diego Association of Governments board. That triggered a standoff over their appointments to other government and nonprofit bodies. Critics alleged that he tried to invest $100 million in a firm accused of fraud.

“The politics never bothered him. I’m the one who wasn’t so thrilled with all of it,” said Cindy Lyon. “He had a thick skin.”

A pilot of small planes, downhill skier and yachtsman, Mr. Lyon continued to win body surfing contests well into his late 70s.

Preceded in death by his son Richard Patrick Lyon and brothers Eugene, Norman and Timothy, he is survived by wife Cindy, nine children, 14 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Celebration of life services are scheduled for 11:00 a.m. Saturday at New Venture Christian Fellowship in Oceanside. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made in Mr. Lyon’s name to the NAVY SEAL Foundation.

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