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West Virginia University at Parkersburg marks 9/11 with ceremony

By Douglass Huxley 3 min read

PARKERSBURG -- A 9/11 Remembrance Ceremony was held Thursday in the College Theater at West Virginia University at Parkersburg.

"Let me tell you something I believe with all my heart," said David Lancaster, interim vice president for academic affairs at WVU-P. "We are but one generation, one generation away from not remembering what happened."

Lancaster spoke of his father pointing out a stone on their property in Tyler County when he was a teenager. Later in life, after his father's passing, some men came to the property looking for that stone. Lancaster spent the day helping them find it and it turns out that stone was a marker for the Tyler County line.

Lancaster remarked that if they had come searching for that stone after he had passed, they might not have found it, because he had failed to pass that knowledge on to his son.

"We're here today to remember that stone, for lack of a better term," Lancaster said. "That is our history, that is who we are, and that is why we are here today. To remember those individuals."

Rob Anderson, professor of history at WVU-P, gave an overview of the events of 9/11: American Flight 11 crashing into the North Tower at 8:46 a.m. and collapsing at 10:28 am., United Flight 175 hitting the South Tower at 9:03 a.m. and its collapse at 9:59 a.m., American Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m., and Flight 93 crashing in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.

"There were 2,977 families who lost a loved one," Anderson said. "These weren't just numbers, these were people, people who lost a loved one."

Maj. James Anderson and Capt. Carl Boyles of the West Virginia National Guard talked about the citizen soldiers who were affected by 9/11.

Anderson talked about his time fighting in Fallujah and the bond and friendships he made.

"You can never quite explain the bonding thing in combat will do to you," Anderson said. "There's not a guy in my squad that I wouldn't be there for today. We developed this bond and cohesiveness that didn't exist in the guard before. We developed a reliance on each other. We became what America should be. We became a group that didn't care if you were male or female. We didn't care what color you were. We didn't care what your relationship with you higher entities were. We didn't care your sexual orientation. None of that mattered. And it doesn't to this day," he said.

Boyles talked about how West Virginia National Guard members are still being deployed overseas and helping even now.

"Even the war in the Ukraine, West Virginia National Guard SF operators out of the 219th had spent five years in Ukraine prior to the kickoff of the current war training Ukrainians on the current tactics you see now," Boyles said.

The ceremony ended with Joseph Ritchey, a WVU-P student veteran, ringing the bell 21 times to signify the 21 years since the events of 9/11.

Douglass Huxley can be reached at dhuxley@newsandsentinel.com

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