Remembering heroes: Keirsten Lyons honors fallen military members, families and veterans

Keirsten Lyons strives to highlight the stories of nearly 400 military members who have died since 9/11.

As Washington State Fallen Heroes Project director, Lyons volunteers in that role toward projects to honor them and support their families, along with veterans. She listens when they talk about loss.

The Spokane mom shows up with genuine empathy. One of the fallen heroes is her son, Jacob “Jake” Hess, a Marine sergeant who died Jan. 1, 2014 , in Afghanistan. He was 22.

“She’s compassionate to all, genuine and authentic; she feels with you,” said Tammie Maple, who nominated Lyons for Woman of the Year.

“I think that’s why she’s so good with veterans and families. She doesn’t overlook anybody. She takes the time to listen. You feel seen and heard with her. You feel for her, her story and how she’s taken action.”

Lyons, 55, was a primary driver behind the August visit to Spokane of the Wall That Heals, a traveling three-quarter scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.

In 2023, she helped launch a Boots on the Ground Memorial Day weekend tribute for fallen service members from Washington and North Idaho, which now includes regional Vietnam War fallen. It displays hundreds of combat boots, each with a small American flag and service member’s photograph.

Lyons also works on the March for the Fallen race and on a rotating Fallen Heroes’ display at NorthTown Mall.

The nonprofit has about 380 banners of post-9/11 heroes. Each has the U.S. service member’s photo, birth and death dates, branch and state tie – a childhood place or home of record. Some are from North Idaho. The banners are temporarily displayed for events or in parades statewide.

Specific to the Fallen Heroes Project, its tributes aren’t limited to how or where service members died, Lyons said.

“Our heroes died in service or as a result of their service,” she said. “To us, there’s no hierarchy in loss. Every story is different. Every story is hard. Every family needs to be supported.

“We have some KIA (killed in action), a lot of suicides, cancer, training accidents. The military is a tough place, and a lot of things happen.”

Before moving to Spokane in 2008, Lyons lived in that world, as a military wife and mom to Jake and another son, Cameron, 30. The family moved 17 times in 20 years.

“I married the military when I was 19,” she said. “Then, life happens, hard things, divorce, and the boys and I ended up here in Spokane. We loved the military life, getting to travel to different places, experiencing different cultures.”

One long stay was in Okinawa, where a young Hess was drawn to the Japanese language, culture and friendships. His banner has both Okinawa and Spokane for hometowns.

From 2008 to 2014, Lyons worked for the Red Cross in Spokane as military services director. Hess graduated from North Central High School and entered the Marine Corps at age 19. He married Bridget, also a Marine, within a week of their boot camp graduations.

In 2013, Lyons remarried. She and her husband Matt Lyons, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, had dated four years prior. They now live in the Five Mile area.

Hess volunteered for Afghanistan duty when his wife’s unit came up for deployment there, because he didn’t want to send her where he wasn’t willing to go, Lyons said.

At first, the grief was overwhelming, particularly the first two years after her son died.

“Running, and writing, probably saved my life – literally,” she said.

She smiled, between tears, when she described how Hess encouraged her to run her first marathon with him.

“He had this quiet strength,” Lyons said. “People wanted to follow him. He had friends from every walk of life.

“He could see things in me that I couldn’t see. In Okinawa, he asked me if I wanted to run a marathon with him. He said, ‘You can do it, Mom.’

“Those words are my go-to words, I can hear him in my head, whenever things are tough.”

In his honor, she did the Oct. 26 Marine Corps Marathon in Washington , D.C., running with Wear Blue: Run to Remember’s Gold Star and Survivor Endurance Program, among 12 nationwide. Hess ran that marathon route in 2012, and then did it remotely in Afghanistan in 2013.

In 2014, Lyons also ran the difficult Lake Tahoe Marathon for her son, and in 2015, she did the Marine marathon in D.C. for the first time.

“In the beginning of loss, you’re just trying to find all those connection points with someone you miss so much,” she said. “The thought of running the same route meant a lot to me, my feet tracing those same steps he did.”

Fallen Heroes was launched about 15 years ago by another Gold Star mom, Kim Cole. She first created a banner for her son Darrel Morris, killed in Iraq, and then other families asked for banners. It became a nonprofit in 2014.

In November, the group moved into its first Spokane single location, instead of storage in various sites. It has a meeting room, office and a bay for a trailer, float, banners and the tribute military boots.

Over the past decade, Lyons has supported many other veteran projects, including the Heroes Garden at the Spokane Veterans Outreach Center. She volunteers once a week at the Mann-Grandstaff Veterans Medical Center.

She also backs an annual Spokane drive for blood, platelet and bone marrow donations to honor her son.

A regular blood donor, Hess entered a bone marrow registry database at 18 and was later found to be a 100% match for Crystal, a Florida resident diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. In 2012, he did a noninvasive peripheral blood stem cell donation for her.

Cancer-free for 13 years, Crystal is thriving, Lyons said. They talk or text most days.

Lyons described a turning point for her – soon after her loss – on Hess’ Feb. 5 birthday in 2014, the date of the first blood drive for her son.

When Lyons returned home from the blood center, it was a 4-degree “blue-bird” afternoon, she said. Driving past about 30 neighbors, she saw a heartfelt tribute.

“We lived on Rifle Club Road at the time, a long road, but every house had a flag flying,” she said. “When we got home, my husband and I walked down the street and I couldn’t get over it; it was just such a beautiful sight, and such a comfort.”

She later learned her husband had gone to each neighbor to ask if they would fly a flag, or offered to provide one.

“There was something on that day, to come home to that, it just hugs your heart. You can’t experience that and not need to do something with it.”

It ignited an energy to do more in the community, she said. She thinks of Fallen Heroes Project as akin to family.

“When we get to walk each other down this really hard road, it helps to be able to walk each other through the good days and the hard days. A lot of people did that for me. To be able to do that for others is a privilege.”