A portrait of Air Force Tech. Sgt. Lionel Rhone Jr. is projected onto a wall of the Northside Chapel at Ramstein Air Base in Germany on Nov. 27, 2023. Airmen held a memorial for Rhone, who died last month after a motorcycle crash near the base. (Phillip Walter Wellman/Stars and Stripes)
RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany — A U.S. service member who had been born just a few miles from his final duty station received a posthumous promotion Monday at a memorial service attended by hundreds of airmen.
Tech. Sgt. Lionel Rhone Jr. was praised for his humble and caring leadership as his mother, Kathy Hill, joined in attendance at the Northside Chapel.
“Lionel was a natural leader who thrived on success and never gave up on himself or others,” Lt. Col. Michael Twining, the 86th Security Forces Squadron commander, told attendees. “He made an impact simply because of the [noncommissioned officer] and leader he was.”
Rhone was a flight sergeant and came from a military family. He was 36 at the time of his death on Oct. 10, following a motorcycle crash about 12 miles southeast of the base.
At Monday’s ceremony, Rhone was awarded the Air and Space Commendation Medal, fifth oak leaf cluster, which was presented to his mother.
Rhone was born in 1987 in Landstuhl, Germany. He moved to the U.S. when he was 7 and graduated from Highland High School in Anderson, Ind., before enlisting in the Air Force.
Rhone had served in Germany since September 2019 and led over 50 co-workers through 122 emergency responses at the Air Force’s largest non-nuclear security forces unit in Europe.
He was responsible for security during a meeting of the Ukrainian Defense Contact Group hosted by the Defense Secretary at Ramstein, which resulted in $800 million in support of Ukraine.
As unit deployment manager, Rhone also managed the command’s busiest security forces mobility section, deploying personnel to support two presidential missions.
He also served in Iraq and Japan during his career.
Several of Rhone’s fellow airmen at the ceremony spoke about his impact.
Tech. Sgt. Charles Murray recalled “how elegantly he would talk to his troops.”
“The way he would talk, he wanted to fix problems and he wanted to identify the problems. I wanted to be just like Lionel,” Murray said.
Senior Airman Kyle Murphy spoke of Rhone’s penchant for telling cheesy jokes, especially early in the morning.
“Lionel was the funniest unfunniest person I ever met,” Murphy said.
Rhone is survived by his wife of eight years, Haylee, their son Emilio and his father, Lionel Rhone Sr., as well as Hill, his mother.
“He was my heart; he was my inspiration,” Hill said.
