Joan Gibson, left, of the Woodburn Chapter DAR, and Rebecca Davis, of the Zackquill Morgan Chapter DAR, prepare to place their wreaths at the USS West Virginia mast Friday. (Photo by Ron Rittenhouse/The Dominion Post)

MORGANTOWN — Spent shells from an honor guard’s 21-gun volley could be heard clinking off the concrete of West Virginia University’s Oglebay Plaza on a cold Friday morning.

It was a tiny sound – but that didn’t stop it from carrying decibels of devotion.

Because it was all for the sailors and civilians who found themselves in the maelstrom of Pearl Harbor 84 years ago.

It took two squadrons of Japanese fighter planes less than two hours to decimate America’s entire U.S. Navy fleet in the Pacific.

A total of 2,403 sailors and civilians were killed in the assault.

Members of the Army ROTC stand at attention at the Pearl Harbor ceremony Friday morning at WVU. (Photo by Ron Rittenhouse/The Dominion Post)

Those planes roaring back over the ocean left in their wake 92 ruined, burning warships that were bound for the bottom of the harbor.

One of them was the USS West Virginia – or, the “Wee-Vee,” as she was known by her shipmates.

The replacement mast of the ship that was patched up and sent into the fray now commands the plaza on the downtown campus at WVU.

Brentyn Jones, a former Navy SEAL and combat medic now training to be a physician at WVU, delivered keynote remarks during the school’s annual remembrance ceremony Friday.

The event was held two days before the anniversary of the assault all those years ago, so the Morgantown and university communities could attend.

“Taps” were played before ringing the USS West Virginia bell from the vessel commissioned in 1905 seven times at a Pearl Harbor ceremony Friday morning. (Photo by Ron Rittenhouse/The Dominion Post)

Into the uncertainty and chaos, the Wee-Vee went, he said. The future physician wasn’t surprised, he said, when he read that history.

“They fought for each other,” the native of Washington state said, “because that’s what sailors do.”

Jones is a Pat Tillman scholar — and one of the latest in the foundation honoring the legacy of Tillman, who walked away from NFL stardom to join the military after Sept. 11.

Two years after he went in, Tillman was killed in Afghanistan.

After medical school, Jones is going back on active duty to better serve his brothers and sisters in arms, he said.

Meghan Shedy, of the Army ROTC, was one of five people that rang the USS West Virginia bell at a Pearl Harbor ceremony Friday morning at WVU. (Photo by Ron Rittenhouse/The Dominion Post)

Every day, he said, students at the state’s flagship university walk by and around an enduring symbol of courage, sacrifice and pride – presented in the form of that towering mast of the Wee-Vee on Oglebay Plaza.

He appreciates that students and townspeople alike enlisted in the effort that was literally a last-second save from the scrapyard in 1961.

Lessons of caring such as that don’t have to be loud, he said.

Sometimes, such overtures of heart and mind can be as light as a clink on concrete.

“Service doesn’t have to end when you take off the uniform,” he said. “West Virginia University taught me that.”

The U.S. Marine Corps Color Guard opens the Pearl Harbor Ceremony at the USS West Virginia mast Friday. (Photo by Ron Rittenhouse/The Dominion Post)