W.Va. Flagship Universities Commemorate 25th Anniversary Of Sept. 11 Terrorist Attacks

At Marshall University commemoration of the anniversary is already underway as students, faculty and staff lead a three-day 9/11 Day of Service event Thursday through Saturday.  

One of only two National Days of Service on the U.S. calendar, 9/11 Day has become the largest single day of service in the country, engaging more than 30 million people each year in service and good deeds.  

“The 9/11 Days of Service gives our campus and the broader community an opportunity to participate actively in remembrance,” graduate student and former student body president Connor Waller said. “In my view, as we approach the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, giving back is a truly meaningful way to honor the legacies of those we lost. Through service, we can lean on each other and have hope for a brighter future.” 

Over the course of the three days, students, faculty and staff will take part in a community memorial cleanup, support for community partners, a 9/11 Memorial Stair Challenge (climbing 2,200 steps to symbolize the journey of first responders who climbed the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001), a Heroes’ Breakfast honoring local first responders and veterans, a tribute walk, a first responder vehicle wash, a VA Mobile Clinic and first responder cancer screening, a first responder softball game, and a hunger relief drive. 

The West Virginia University Center for Veteran, Military and Family Programs will host a ceremony at the Sept. 11 memorial adjacent to Clark Hall. WVU President Michael T. Benson will be the keynote speaker. Joining him will be retired WVU professor Tom Witt and Army ROTC Cadet Gavin-Paul Denmead. 

John Dowling, recruiting operations officer for WVU’s Army ROTC, said Army and Air Force cadets will hold a 12-hour vigil in front of the WVU Downtown Library.   

“Annually we gather along with the Air Force cadets and the veteran military community on campus to do a Pearl Harbor commemoration event each year on Dec. 7. That’s another one of those kind of seminal events in U.S. history that we should never forget,” Dowling said. “If we discontinue doing these things, people will soon forget what actually happened.”  

Dowling noted that the cadets who will conduct the vigil this year weren’t even alive on 9/11.  He said the tradition of marching from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. was started by cadets in 2002 that knew that they were going into a military that was going to have a response around the world and has been observed consistently for 24 years. 

“Those folks, cadets at that time, did this voluntarily, and you know, with the idea of hey, my bag is packed, I’m ready to go. I think there was the national response to that,” Dowling said.  

Despite its relatively recent formation, Dowling said he has been unable to identify any individual cadets who came up with the idea of the vigil. 

“It says a lot about a you know 18- to 22-year-old college student who says, ‘Hey, we’re going to go out and do this because you know it’s the right thing to do,’ knowing that within a matter of years or months, their future was going to be dictated by what happened around the world militarily,” he said. “But that’s what mountaineers do: patriotic, dedicated, hardworking-all those values that make us good Americans and good soldier and airmen-all came through in the ROTC cadets and the student veterans of that time.” 

WVU alumni Chris Gray and Jim K. Samuel Jr. were killed in the attacks. Gray was a quarterback on the WVU football team, and Dowling recalled being in class with him. 

“I didn’t know him other than the fact that if he was in the room, everybody knew him,” he said. “He was an interesting character, had a lot of personality, and maybe that’s what made him a quarterback and a good leader on the football team.” 

There are many other events planned across the state, such as a Service of Remembrance at Heritage Point in Wheeling. Gov. Patrick Morrisey has announced he will attend two 9/11 events at the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division in Clarksburg as well as Parkersburg High School.