Parkersburg observes Veterans Day
Photo by Jess Mancini Sue Rhymer, a retired captain in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps, was the keynote speaker Saturday at the Veterans Day observance in Parkersburg.
Photo by Jess Mancini Several hundred people attended the Veterans Day ceremony at City Park in Parkersburg on Saturday. The parade on Washington Avenue ended at the Veterans Memorial next to the pond where the audience assembled for the annual observance.
Photo by Jess Mancini The Parkersburg South High School marching band was the lead performer in the Veterans Day parade in Parkersburg.
Photo by Jess Mancini Ray Brown, 100, leads the Pledge of Allegiance during the Veterans Day observance Saturday at City Park in Parkersburg. Brown, the parade marshal, is a World War II U.S. Army glider paratrooper in the Battle of the Bulge and in Operation Varsity in March 1945, the largest airborne assault in U.S. history. With Brown, from left, are Delegate Scot Heckert and Kevin Siers and Mike McLain of the Marine Corps League.
Photo by Jess Mancini Parkersburg Mayor Tom Joyce reads a proclamation for Veterans Day from the mayors of Mid-Ohio Valley cities at the observance at City Park. From left, Secretary Ted Diaz of the West Virginia Department of Veterans Assistance, Kevin Siers and Mike McLain of the Marine Corps League.
Photo by Jess Mancini A ceremonial riderless horse with boots backward in the stirrups closes the Veterans Day parade at City Park in Parkersburg.
Photo by Jess Mancini Sue Rhymer, a retired captain in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps, was the keynote speaker Saturday at the Veterans Day observance in Parkersburg.
Photo by Jess Mancini Several hundred people attended the Veterans Day ceremony at City Park in Parkersburg on Saturday. The parade on Washington Avenue ended at the Veterans Memorial next to the pond where the audience assembled for the annual observance.
Photo by Jess Mancini The Parkersburg South High School marching band was the lead performer in the Veterans Day parade in Parkersburg.
Photo by Jess Mancini Ray Brown, 100, leads the Pledge of Allegiance during the Veterans Day observance Saturday at City Park in Parkersburg. Brown, the parade marshal, is a World War II U.S. Army glider paratrooper in the Battle of the Bulge and in Operation Varsity in March 1945, the largest airborne assault in U.S. history. With Brown, from left, are Delegate Scot Heckert and Kevin Siers and Mike McLain of the Marine Corps League.
Photo by Jess Mancini Parkersburg Mayor Tom Joyce reads a proclamation for Veterans Day from the mayors of Mid-Ohio Valley cities at the observance at City Park. From left, Secretary Ted Diaz of the West Virginia Department of Veterans Assistance, Kevin Siers and Mike McLain of the Marine Corps League.
Photo by Jess Mancini A ceremonial riderless horse with boots backward in the stirrups closes the Veterans Day parade at City Park in Parkersburg.
Trending
PARKERSBURG – A nurse who served in Vietnam said her experiences shaped her outlook on war at the annual Veterans Day observance Saturday in Parkersburg.
Never go to war unless it's necessary, Pat Rhymer, a retired captain in the U.S. Army Nurse corps, said.
Rhymer was the keynote speaker at the veterans memorial at City Park where several hundred people gathered for the ceremony that included a parade of veterans organizations, military trucks, marching bands from Parkersburg South High School and Parkersburg High School and a flyover of an Army medical helicopter.
World War II veteran Ray H. Brown, who turned 100 in July, was the parade marshal. He was a U.S. Army glider paratrooper who fought in the Battle of the Bulge and jumped into Germany in Operation Varsity in March 1945, the largest airborne operation in U.S. history.
Rhymer graduated from Parkersburg High in 1960. While in nursing school, she enlisted in the Army and later married her husband who was in the Army.
"Three weeks later we were on our way to Vietnam," she said.
Rhymer discussed women serving with honor in the military.
"Women have served in many wars in our history," Rhymer said.
Among those was Deborah Simpson, who disguised herself as a man to fight in the Revolutionary War, Rhymer said. Simpson fought alongside men until a doctor discovered she was a woman.
"There are many stories like hers," Rhymer said.
Among speakers were Delegate Scot Heckert, R-Wood, who read a letter from Gov. Jim Justice, Mayor Tom Joyce, who read a proclamation from the mayors of cities in the Mid-Ohio Valley, and Secretary Ted Diaz of the West Virginia Department of Veterans Assistance. Joyce gave a shout out to Vienna Mayor Randy Rapp, who later officiated the Veterans Day ceremony in Vienna, and his organization of the proclamation.
"The parade, your hospitality means so much not only to me, but to our nation's veterans," Diaz said.
Participants in the parade included the DAV, the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Sons of the American Revolution, the Commandant Archibald Cox Marine Corps League Unit 1087 and other veterans and civic organizations.
The combined high school bands performed the national anthem and a medley of the theme songs from branches of the military. Wreaths were laid at the veterans memorial and Carlin's Battery D, the county-sanctioned Civil War re-enactment group, fired the ceremonial cannon.
Brown led the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.
"We certainly can't thank him enough for what he has done for all of us," Mike McLain, a past commandant of the Department of West Virginia Marine Corps League and the master of ceremonies.