Heartbreak + 25 years

The following commentary on the 20th anniversary of the World Trade Center terrorist attack was published in 2021 while I was the editor of a weekly newspaper in Somerset County. Reading it a few days ago, the words still rang true. It seemed appropriate for this year’s 25th anniversary. Middlesex Borough will hold its annual 9/11 ceremony at 7 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 11 at Victor Crowell Park.

If you’re old enough to remember, you don’t need a refresher. You can still feel the horror, fear and sorrow that can overwhelm a person in one day. A sunny, late summer Tuesday turned into a hell that took our country years to crawl out of. In numerous New York City-Metropolitan Area towns, the shock was compounded by the loss of a community member. In some places, multiple neighbors were lost.

After a world-changing event such as the 9/11 terror attack, the two-decade anniversary is a typical benchmark time to reflect. It would be easy to look back today and lament our now time-consuming air travel screening and the more stringent identification requirements involved when applying for items such as a driver’s license.

It’s appropriate to look back at another thing we lost, that is still within our ability to recapture.

As the nation mourned thousands of dead and uncountable lives changed 20 years ago, we had an awakening. Some would say the country pulled together. Cynical psychologists claimed societal fear drove us closer. Perhaps many of us finally took an honest look at the country we live in and wanted to make it better. 

Despite varying backgrounds and origins, we are all Americans. Spirited debate is part of our heritage and differing opinions a Constitutional right. There are times, however, to let civility rule the day. Is it worth it to get in the face of someone who inadvertently cuts in a shopping line? If the guy two doors down has a party and carries on a bit later than you’d like, is it worth it to complain or call the police? If community volunteers are giving honest effort and time, should they be called out publicly if something goes slightly off kilter?

In the immediate wake of 9/11, we seemed to get it. Since then, something has happened to that mindset.

We’ve been through much as a country in the past two decades. Middle East wars with seemingly no end. Continuing terrorism fears both home and abroad. A crippling economic recession. Racial tensions that are prone to escalate. Political differences that border on civil war. A deadly pandemic that shows no signs of ending completely.

It’s interesting to hear the take of those too young to remember Sept. 11, 2001. My youngest daughter was born the following year. To her, the World Trade Center attack makes for a historical television show or read, without related traumatic recollections.

She’s made a point of telling the rest of the family, “I didn’t experience it. You did.”

It hasn’t been lost on me that her generation is much more accepting of people’s differences and cognizant of their struggles than my generation, or other adults who might be a bit younger than I. My daughter and other Generation Z members missed, or are too young to recall, one of the most frightening days in our history. But maybe they were the long-term attitude beneficiaries. Perhaps they inherited a more tolerant world view and embraced it. Instead, us oldsters shrugged off the lessons of a horrendous tragedy and went back to our irritable, unforgiving ways.

As a nation, will we ever return to those brief, by-gone days of brotherhood that began during the morning of Sept. 11, 2001? Here’s hoping we do. Here’s hoping it won’t take another cataclysm to make it happen.

(Copyright 2026 Dave Polakiewicz. All Rights Reserved)

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