This Saturday marks the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the fall of the World Trade Center, the crash of Flight 93, and the attack on the Pentagon. Much has changed in the two decades since that terrible day, but in Livingston, each and every year, we still take time to honor the seven Livingston residents we lost.Luke A. Dudek. Jeffrey Brian Gardner. Donald Thomas Jones II. Ming-Hao Liu. Joseph P. McDonald. John M. Pocher. Kenneth Albert Zelman.They became part of a nationwide tragedy that forever altered the face of America. Our country’s confidence in the security of its citizens and its institutions was shaken to its core. In the years that followed, towns across the nation held ceremonies to honor the more than 3,000 people who lost their lives in the attacks, including our own service in Livingston, organized each year by Bunnie Ratner, chairperson of the 9/11 garden at the Oval and the annual Ceremony of Remembrance.In the 20 years that have passed since the attacks, the pain has dulled, especially for those who suffered no personal losses that day. There are now full-fledged adults who were born after the attacks. Terrorism is, sadly, much more commonplace these days, with information of the latest mass shooting so frequent that it is no longer even guaranteed to lead the evening news. The “new normal” is no longer new.But, like the attack on Pearl Harbor that launched our country into World War II, September 11 has become “a date that lives in infamy.” The very date, in and of itself, has become synonymous with the tragic events of that day. Those who were alive in 1963 always recall where they were and what they were doing when they heard that President Kennedy had been shot. Likewise, for those of a certain age, September 11, 2001, serves as a line of demarcation, defining the date that this “new normal” was established. The way we travel, the way we perceive our place as Americans on the world stage, even the way we live our everyday lives, was irrevocably changed.In the tri-state area, where we live in close proximity to the site of the attack on the World Trade Center, many of the 9/11 memorial ceremonies continued to be held as the years passed. But as time has moved on and we approach the end of the second decade ...
