MORGANTOWN – It was a sunny May Saturday in Morgantown, 24 years ago, when a group of Gene Vance Jr.’s friends gathered at Whitetail Cycle & Fitness to talk about the buddy they knew – but didn’t.
Vance was a Special Forces operative who was fluent in Farsi and recognized with a Bronze Star during the Gulf War, but to them, and their two-wheeled community, he was just a guy who simply liked to ride as much as they did.
He was tall and rangy. Soft-spoken. Always smiling.
And, always early at Whitetail, the bike shop where the 38-year-old worked, while carrying a full schedule of classes at West Virginia University.
Give him an endless cup of coffee, and the endless summer of 1960s surf guitar music over the sound system, and he was a happy man.
His friends who went on bicycle jaunts with him over the rolling two-lanes of north-central West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania did not know he was a man on a literal mission.
Sure, they may have noticed his absences around town, but they weren’t aware he was off in a war zone somewhere.
Newly married in 2001, the one-time active duty soldier had put off his honeymoon to go back into battle – after the twin towers in lower Manhattan crumpled and fiery wounds were gouged into the Pentagon and in a field once covered in wildflowers at the edge of a forest near Shanksville, Pa.
The week before his handlebar brothers showed up at the Wharf District, Vance was boots-on-the-ground, in the Paktika province of eastern Afghanistan.
A bullet found him.
He was bleeding to death.
THE WAR STORIES HE DIDN’T TELL
Still, he managed to save several of his fellow soldiers, right to the end.
It was May 19, 2002, and Vance had just become West Virginia’s first casualty of war – in the War on Terror.
Six days later in Morgantown, his pals pedaled in at the Wharf, as they awaited Vance’s return to West Virginia. First was the dignified transfer of the flag-draped coffin from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
And while it wasn’t anything formal, they did ride in honor that afternoon.
Meanwhile, on Saturday of this weekend, things were set to get formal in the expression of gratitude for Vance’s military life and times.
Morgantown, the adopted hometown of the Wyoming County native Vance, was set to honor him with a virtual remembrance that would also be a cultural link with the nationwide marking of U.S. Armed Forces Day.
The University City’s version of Gene Vance Jr. Day, also a U.S. sanctioned observance, was expected to commence at 3 p.m. on YouTube and other social media platforms. Connect to the events via genevancejr.org.
Music performances by Mountain State favorites the Davisson Brothers Band and Cody Clayton Eagle were on the bill, organizers said.
Look for recorded messages from Morgantown City Council, national military leaders and Doug Geary, who is ride captain of the West Virginia Guard Riders – a motorcycle club that respects and supports the people who wear the uniform.
West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito and James Hoyer, the retired adjutant general of the state’s National Guard, were also expected to appear via video.
Frank Gmeidl told The Dominion Post previously that the Vance he knew didn’t act like a video.
That is, said Gmeidl, an avid cyclist who often rode with Vance, there was no swagger from a guy who did adventurous, dangerous things in the service of his country.
Gmeidl only learned of Vance’s military life, he said, after reading his obituary in The Dominion Post.
“All cyclists ever talk about are their bikes and conditioning,” Vance’s fellow rider said.
“The social issues of the day never came up. I just knew him as ‘Gene.’”
