Lacy O’Neill had a way of bringing people together, especially at her unit in the Maryland Air National Guard’s 175th Wing.
The staff sergeant was fond of taking new airmen under her wing at the unit based at Martin State Airport in Middle River, but she also was close with grizzled, older members, said Capt. Allison Fleming, commander of the 175th Security Forces Squadron.
“She was kind of everybody’s best friend,” said Fleming, who recalled O’Neill being “the most friendly, bubbly and kind person I ever met” when she enlisted in the National Guard around the same time as O’Neill.
The same was true for Makai Cummings, a Baltimore City College lacrosse standout who — to his family’s surprise — decided to enlist in the Air Force after graduating from the high school, despite being accepted into several colleges.
Cummings’ colleagues always looked forward to seeing him at Seymour Johnson Air Force base, his mother Rotina Lacy said. A jokester who took school, work and athletics seriously, he sought to make people laugh — whether they were family, City College classmates or part of the 335th Fighter Generation Squadron, where he worked on electronic components for fighter jets.
Cummings, a first-class airman, died last May in a hit-and-run crash in Virginia while traveling to the base in North Carolina after visiting his family in Baltimore for his mother’s birthday weekend. Virginia State Police said the 20-year-old was apparently changing a tire on the right shoulder of the road when an oncoming vehicle struck him. Over a year later, no suspect has been identified in Cummings’ death.
O’Neill died at a hospital Jan. 3 after an Acura TL struck her vehicle as she exited a parking lot onto the 3000 block of Eastern Boulevard. Her sister, Britney O’Neill, said the 30-year-old was leaving work at the 175th Wing that night. The other driver, who was injured but survived, was indicted in April on negligent manslaughter and reckless driving charges.
Cummings and O’Neill will be among several service members from Maryland who recently died who are honored at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens’ Memorial Day ceremony. Gov. Wes Moore will speak at the event, which begins at 10 a.m. Monday at the Timonium cemetery. Others being honored include:
- Army Spc. Edgar A. Allen III, of Baltimore
- Navy Capt. John D. Stevens, of Crofton
- Army Spc. Izaiah A. Sneed, of Abingdon
- Navy Seaman Apprentice Juan M. Soriano, of Aberdeen
- Air Force Airman 1st Class Russell K. Griffith V, of Salisbury
- Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Christopher J. Chambers, of Prince George’s County
Losing O’Neill was “a huge hit to the squadron,” said Fleming, who had become O’Neill’s commander just before the 30-year-old’s death. But in a way, it brought people together, with airmen constantly checking in on one another’s emotional well-being in the weeks that followed.
“I think that’s something she would’ve wanted to see,” Fleming said.
Fleming and O’Neill were together in Student Flight, a pre-basic training program for new enlistees without prior military service, after they enlisted. Fleming described O’Neill as her first friend at the Air Force reserve.
O’Neill, who worked a full-time day job as a lab technician at Friendship Dental Lab in Rosedale, was a hard worker who was “pretty much proficient at everything” at the 175th Wing’s Security Forces Squadron, and struck a balance between her military and civilian careers, Fleming said. She regularly picked up extra duties and was in line to be promoted to technical sergeant. She was awarded that rank posthumously.
O’Neill’s sister described the 5-foot-11 middle child as a “gentle giant” with “the softest voice and the kindest heart.” She enjoyed outdoor activities, like kayaking, riding motorcycles, going to the firing range and skydiving.
Though family members had gone their separate ways in adulthood, the sisters had moved back in together for a period. After Britney moved to her own house last year, her sister would stop by, either for dinner or to watch a movie, simply because they missed each other.
A neighbor and family friend who was a recruiter for the Air National Guard persuaded Lacy to enlist in the unit about a decade ago, according to her sister.
“She liked that everybody was family,” her sister said, noting that she often offered to help members of the unit, who had their fellow members’ back, as well.
O’Neill made a point of dedicating her spare time to her friendships with fellow airmen, Fleming said.
“She made [the unit] a part of her life,” she said.
Both O’Neill’s captain and sister noted that her funeral services were packed full of people — many who neither recognized — whose lives the airman had touched.
Cummings’ mother spoke with her son nearly every day while he was in the Air Force, though her son’s impact on his unit became much clearer once she heard directly from his colleagues when she visited them last fall.
“He enjoyed being an encourager to his co-workers,” Lacy said, adding that Makai’s colleagues noted those same traits that made her son so special — his determination, his positive attitude and his desire to make people smile.
“It was something to actually hear it from his co-workers,” she said.
The Air Force invited Cummings’ family to North Carolina in October for a ceremony where they were given an Air and Space Achievement Medal awarded to Makai for his work troubleshooting issues with electronic components, including an issue with a fighter jet’s radar that had persisted for weeks. Base officials also showed the family that Cummings’ name had been imprinted on a fighter jet flown by the commander.
“He was proud of the work he did,” Cummings’ mother said. He would often FaceTime his father, an electrician, to show off that he was working on fighter jet electronics.
Lacy still sees traces of Makai in his younger brother, giving her a bittersweet mix of emotions a year after his death. There’s the joy of seeing Makai live on through his siblings, to whom he passed on his values and silliness, but also the sadness in recognizing the “huge void” left in the tight-knit, blended family.
“I could see what he was growing into as a man … I miss him, and I miss what he would have been,” she said.
Lacy wants to see a suspect in her son’s death come forward, and she has questions about the case that she’d like to see answered. She noted, though, that the criminal system will not give her what she’d rather have — having her son back.
Those with information on the events leading to Cummings’ death can contact Virginia State Police at 804-750-8758 or the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, which is also probing the crash, at 919-722-1218.