By John Madden
Today, Friday, is the 25th anniversary of 9/11. July 4th was the 250th anniversary of independence. Both are anniversaries of defining American moments — but only one of them still lives in anyone’s memory. That difference is the whole point.
9/11 is close enough to touch. Here in Morristown, 30 miles from NYC, most of us remember it directly, and many lost someone because of it. Even those too young to have lived through it know it firsthand, from the people who did — not just from books.
It’s also not one memory but three. Ground Zero, the Pentagon, the field in Pennsylvania — like World War II’s two theaters, 9/11 had three. People naturally gravitate to the one that touched them, even knowing it was a national tragedy, not a local one.
July 4th, 1776, is the opposite. Nobody alive today experienced it, or knew anyone who did. We’re 10 generations removed — 10 times further than we are from 9/11. Morristown has real ties to the Revolution, and we can read what was recorded, but the way of life, the identity, the mindset of that era is genuinely alien to us now. Our connection to it is imagined, mythologized.
That’s what distance does to memory. History gets foggier with age, even when historians try to stay objective, because their work is only as good as the flawed accounts it’s built on — and lay readers absorb it through their own distortions on top of that. Old events get romanticized into fate rather than remembered as the accidents, happy or not, that they were. And they get celebrated from one perspective, with the critics and opponents of the time quietly dropped.
9/11 hasn’t been mythologized yet. It’s still raw. And what we remember isn’t just the tragedy — it’s the response: No looting, no opportunism, just a grassroots outpouring of empathy and duty that didn’t wait on government. That’s worth honoring in its own right, on the same terms as the Declaration’s hopes or the Constitution’s “We the people.”
That’s why “Never forget” matters more as time passes, not less. The record has to be protected accurately now, while memory is still direct — before it drifts the way July 4th already has, into romance, myth, and other people’s agendas.
More on the Morristown connection to both dates in the months ahead. Also worth a beat: the January 6th Capitol attack and the first COVID-19 vaccines both turn five this year.
John Madden spent 27 years at Morristown High School teaching English and Life Design. He is a longtime Morristown resident with a daughter who just finished her first year at Hillcrest Elementary. His community involvement includes advocating for the Lake Pocahontas / Patriots Path restoration project.
Opinions in commentaries are the authors’, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication.
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