Heroes in our Hometown: Major General R. Dale Lyles

Accounting for just 6% of the United States adult population, it is not every day that you run into a military veteran. What’s more, it is even more rare to cross paths with a major general. What are the odds of a major general from the U.S. Army calling Washington County home? They are greater than you might think. The Washington County Times had the immense pleasure of sitting down with Major General R. Dale Lyles to discuss his time and experiences in the military.

Born in Munich, Germany, Maj. Gen. Lyles proudly served in the U.S. Military for a staggering 38 years, and he attributes his initial interest in the armed forces to his father, Major Roger Lyles. Major Roger Lyles served for five years in the Indiana Army National Guard and 20 years on active duty in the Army.

“What triggered my desire to serve was that my dad’s a retired Army officer,” said Maj. Gen. Lyles. “He did 25 years in the active Army, so I kind of grew up in the Army. When I was a freshman in high school, he retired and moved back to Salem, his hometown.”

Like many military children, Lyles grew up in many different places. He spent most of his time at Camp Atterbury, but he also had stays at Muscatatuck Training Center, Washington, DC, and Arlington, Virginia. Lyles partially attributes how he is shaped today to this on-the-move childhood.

“I love my small town, and I love my farm. I love to spend my weekends here, but I think my exposure to other cultures and other people beyond Washington County really helped to diversify me and make me a more rounded person and better strategic thinker. Although, I love my small town. I love living here, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything,” said Lyles.

“I was kind of drifting through high school – didn’t really know what I wanted to do, but I wound up joining the military right after school. I then got out of active duty and finished my bachelor’s degree at Indiana University Southeast,” he continued. 

Lyles went on to say that he still wanted to serve, but going back to active duty was not something he was necessarily interested in.

“I still had a longing to serve [after college], but I didn’t want to go back into active duty. I was getting ready to start a family, and the demands of active duty were a lot back then,” continued Lyles. “So, I wound up joining the National Guard, and that really perpetuated my desire to serve. So, I ended up becoming full time active duty in the National Guard for 28 years. Then I wound up having 10 additional years in the National Guard, so 38 years total of service. I just recently retired on February 1, 2025.”

Maj. Gen. Lyles took on a number of assignments within the State of Indiana that culminated with him being the Adjutant General in charge of the Indiana National Guard as well as being a cabinet member for the Holcomb Administration for five years.

“The most challenging years of my career were the two and a half years that we were dealing with COVID. We were on the front lines of COVID,” he explained. “I remember the first death from COVID occurring in Indiana. Doctor Box, my fellow cabinet member in charge of the Department of Health, met with me on a Sunday morning with the Chief of Staff, Department of Homeland Security, and a fellow cabinet member with FSSA, and we sat down to talk about this virus and the impact of it. There were so many unknowns back then, and so we started to frame a strategy on how to deal with the virus on day one after the first death we had… We started to put a strategy together that really perpetuated the National Guard into the State of Indiana, and within a matter of weeks, we had opened our armories for testing sites.

“This was a very non-standard mission for me,” continued Lyles. “I am an infantry officer and have been deployed multiple times, and I’m really trained in infantry doctrine. So, what we did was over the course of two years we utilized 68 armories with our medical personnel administering vaccines. I also had 1,300 guardsmen in long term care facilities because that is where the preponderance of the deaths were occurring. We distributed the vaccine and put about 1,000 guardsmen in the food banks due to the food insecurity at the time. For two years, we were really working in that space.

“I really credit the National Guard with really stopping the deaths within the long term care facilities. The problem was that people were just coming and going and bringing the virus in, so we put control points in, we monitored temperatures, and we really stopped it by not allowing the virus to get into the nursing homes. About a month later, vaccines were introduced in the facilities, and that really helped us as well. In my 38 years, that was probably the most challenging mission because it was very non-standard. There were so many unknowns, and people were telling me I was signing soldier’s death warrants by sending them into the epidemic. That was just the risk we had to take,” said Lyles.

According to Lyles, one of the more gratifying projects that he has been a part of was redefining the Indiana High School Diploma.

“I helped to redesign the high school diploma inside of Indiana. It made it through the legislative process, and it is getting ready to be put into law. So now, our high school diploma is going to have three seals,” he explained. “There will be an Enroll seal, which means the student is on track to go to college and will track the Core 40 and AP programs. It will have an Employ seal that will be a more trades-oriented direction, and it will also have an Enlist seal.

“So, what we did is we offered this Enlist seal that helps kids understand that if they want to be in public service – law enforcement, conservation officer, military – that they really need to understand the requirements for that as a freshman in high school,” Lyles explained. “If you are not capable of getting a security clearance upon graduation because you have a serious misdemeanor, you simply won’t get a security clearance. The requirements to join the military or to be a police officer are very difficult, so part of this Enlist seal is going into the high schools and teaching kids about public service and the requirements to be in public service. It has really gained a lot of momentum.”

Maj. Gen. Lyles is very fond of being an infantry officer. He goes as far to say that it is the “pinnacle” of the Army.

“I am an infantry officer, and I chose that branch because it is the pinnacle of what the Army does. The infantryman is on the ground, and there’s always got to be a ground component to any conflict. If you cannot seize the terrain and hold it, then you cannot win,” said Lyles. “So, being a platoon leader in the infantry was very appealing to me probably because my dad was in the same branch when he was in.

“I was able to join the infantry, go to the U.S. Army Ranger school, Airborne school, Air Assault school, and really achieve those things as a younger infantry officer. That is really what shaped me into my thinking of what I am,” he added.

Lyles explained that he spent time in two combat zones during his service: Bosnia right after 9/11 and Afghanistan in 2004 and 2005. He said that being in a combat zone really helps to put into perspective what it means to serve your country.

“When I was a young lieutenant and a captain and major, I was really just after the next assignment; whatever assignment would help to get me to the next rank. After my deployment in Bosnia and Afghanistan, I really started to reflect upon service and the fact that being in the service means this oath that you swore to protect and defend the country and the constitution is a lot bigger than the job,” said Lyles. “When I started to set myself aside and really pursue a more service-oriented perspective, that is really when I started to achieve things in my career. I wish I had known that as a lieutenant, but I really didn’t start to see that until I became a field grade officer and really started to see the service component. When I went to war college, that opened the aperture for seeing what a strategic environment is and how the military plays a role in that.”

In addition to his one year and six month stay in Afghanistan and Bosnia, Lyles has been to a number of different locations. He has been to nearly every NATO nation due to his membership in the NATO Urban Operations Task Group, he has also been to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and parts of Africa. He then began to describe a bit of his experiences in combat zones.

“I’ll tell you, especially in Bosnia, how quickly humanity can deteriorate into a war and how quickly people can let a leader take a country down a path that winds up being a war for not the right reasons,” expressed Lyles. “I saw that in Bosnia, but what I saw in Afghanistan was a need to fight someone who had attacked the United States. But, to be there and really see a struggle to accept democracy and freedom and a general unwillingness by the people to fight for their country really taught me just how fragile our own country is.

“We have the best country in the world by far and our framework for our government is unmatched, but it requires work and the blood of American men and women in order to protect it. There are dictators that want to take this country and displace America as the leader of the free world because they want to be the leader of the world themselves. China wants to take their form of government and rule the world with it, and same thing with Russia,” he said.

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Lyles then pivoted to discussing what it was like to come back to the States after his combat deployments.

“The military does a really good job of reintegrating you back into society. There is a tremendous amount of resources that help people reintegrate. Returning to the United States and returning to my family are both things that they teach you. So, for example, whenever you’re getting ready to come back from a combat zone, They say things like, ‘hey, your wife has been at home raising the kids by herself for the last year. Don’t go back in there and think you’re going to just take over. Don’t go in and demand the checkbook and the finances,’ for example. You have to go back to your family with a certain amount of ease. They teach you those things and make you familiar with what you’re getting ready to come back into and what to expect.

“There is a wide spectrum of how people reintegrate,” continued Lyles. “Some people come back without any problems like me, but other people come back with things that haunt them for the rest of their lives. Thankfully, the military has tons of resources that help you with coping and getting you reintegrated.

“Everyone has a different level of resilience, and that’s something I’ve learned,” he said. “I think some of that is generational too. For example, my generation was raised and taught to be self-sufficient. My Gen Z boys were not quite taught that. My wife and I worked hard to ensure that they had everything they needed and could go to college. When you look at the different ways in which this generation is being raised, that resiliency that we had in our generation is not the same. I think that lack of resiliency equates to some of the mental health issues, and I think that is a big culprit of the suicide rate.”

Due to Lyles’s research on the topic of young suicides, he began to implement mental toughness classes inside the Indiana National Guard in order to teach students to “expect life to hit you in the face.”

“We were having these kids go through basic training, and the drill sergeants would get after them right after they got there, and they just end up quitting and walking away from it. So, we began to teach resilience and mental toughness, and it’s really gone a long way,” said Lyles. “We started to see the suicide rates go down and our success rates in basic training go up.”

Lyles added that basic training is quite different today compared to the 1980s when he was in it. He mentioned that basic training in the 80s included “a lot of yelling and physical discipline to help you achieve the mold they wanted to put you in.” He went on to say that today’s basic training is still very physically demanding, but it has become more of a teaching and mentoring program to make you accustomed to military life.

“I think the learning and mentoring environment is really what we need today. Today’s Army is so technology driven, and technology is what gives us a five to one advantage over our adversaries,” remarked Lyles. “So, having the ability to operate in this high-tech environment – electronic warfare, cybersecurity, hypersonic missiles – all of those things are what puts America in front of our adversaries… Again, you always have to have the land component, you always have to have the infantry, but these high-tech jobs are really beginning to dictate how our basic training needs to be formatted.”

Although he is retired, Maj. Gen. Lyles is taking what he learned from his years in the service and is still making the effort to stay involved with veterans and is doing what he can to help make a difference. Lyles is currently preparing to sit on a board in Indianapolis to help with veteran homelessness due to issues such as PTSD. He said that his foundation in doing so is his belief in the Bible and in Christianity, and his understanding of humanity and what it is capable of.

“That’s where I take my comfort,” he said. “I am getting ready to be named as a board member for the homeless veterans project in Indianapolis. So, I’m going to be a board member that oversees that particular program with some other members of the board. Part of being on that board will include me going to see some of the homeless veterans and see some of the mental health issues and challenges that they are having, both with homelessness and food security, and see if I can help in that regard.

“Learning the meaning of selfless service is a game changer. When I learned to set aside my personal goals and own career objectives and began to work in a selfless servant manner, that is when things really started to change for me,” added Lyles. “People in the military – and people in general – who begin to think less about themselves and more about others and the institution that they work for really start to change both professionally and personally. And for me, in my 38 years of service, I never used an alarm clock, I never had to drag myself out of bed and take myself to work. I honestly got up every morning enthusiastic about going and making a difference. I really felt like the military was an institution that stood between good and evil, and I was part of the good that was trying to fight an adversary that continues to try to displace America today. Being a part of that national security apparatus was just going to work everyday and feeling good about what I was doing. Realizing selfless service was a game changer for me…

“The military offers everything that one needs in order to improve themselves, and in order to achieve academic goals if they desire,” continued Lyles. “You can join the National Guard today and go to any state college 100% tuition free. While at the same time, learning how to build resiliency, how to build mental toughness, how to acquire a job skill, how to become physically fit, and how to become a better citizen and a better person…

“I believe every American needs to appreciate their democracy, and they need to find a way to serve. If it’s not in the military, then perhaps it’s with a nonprofit. Just something that is continuing to build and sustain America as the greatest country in the world. I think the military offers that, and at the same time, it offers you the ability to really have self-improvement,” he said.

“Something else it offers is brotherhood and camaraderie. You could potentially give your life for your brother, and when you are committed to those kinds of things, it just builds a very strong bond between all those that serve and the veterans… It’s just very special,” he concluded.

Major General R. Dale Lyles’s journey from a drifting high school student to a decorated military leader is a powerful testament to the transformative power of service. Throughout nearly four decades in uniform, he has shaped not only his own life but also the lives of countless others. His words reflect both a deep humility and a steadfast commitment to the ideals of service and country. And as he transitions into retirement, his mission continues with compassion and faith. Washington County is home to many quiet heroes, but few with a story as broad-reaching and impactful as that of Major General Lyles. His life is a reminder that service doesn’t end with retirement, it evolves. And in that evolution, it continues to shape the future.

Major General R. Dale Lyles, thank you so much for your service.

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