Remembering A 9/11 Victim From Manahawkin 20 Years Later

MANAHAWKIN, NJ — Anyone older than 25 in Manahawkin likely remembers where they were on 9/11.

Americans felt a collective trauma as first one and then another plane flew into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001. As the truth dawned on people watching from their TVs that America was under attack, another plane took aim at the Pentagon. A fourth was brought down in a field in Pennsylvania in a final act of heroism by passengers who realized their flight had been hijacked.

Nearly 3,000 Americans, including one from Manahawkin, were killed in the suicide attacks carried out by 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al-Qaida.

On the 20th anniversary of the attacks, our state remembers and mourns Christopher S. Cramer of Manahawkin.

Cramer, 34, was vice president of tax operations at Fiduciary Trust Company International. He worked on the 90th floor of Two World Trade Center when it was attacked.

The Jimmy Buffet super fan owned a lagoon home, and on weekends Cramer enjoyed fishing and drinking beer with family and friends, according to his obituary.

Cramer lived in "commuter hell," his obituary says. He drove more than 200 miles a day to the World Trade Center and back. He endured the commute for 11 years, leaving home at 7:10 a.m., and it turned him gray, his fiancée said.

Cramer had plans to take a buyout and retire in Florida once he turned 35. On Sept. 11, 2001, Cramer's dream was only 317 days away.

"He wanted to get down there before he went totally gray," said his fiancée, Tracy Pereless.

All 9/11 victims will be remembered at memorial services planned across the nation on Sept. 11 to mark the 20th anniversary of the attacks.

Ocean County’s Day of Remembrance Ceremony will be held Friday, Sept. 10 at 11 a.m. at the Ocean County September 11 Monument in the plaza near 129 Hooper Ave.

At the 9/11 memorial in Lower Manhattan, New York — an area known for years after the attacks as “Ground Zero” — the names of the fallen will be read aloud.

“Throughout the ceremony, we will observe six moments of silence, acknowledging when each of the World Trade Center towers was struck and fell and the times corresponding to the attack on the Pentagon and the crash of Flight 93,” the 9/11 Memorial & Museum wrote on its website.

The annual “Tribute of Light,” which are lights pointed to the sky in the shape of the Twin Towers, will go on that night.

Most 9/11 victims were from either New York or New Jersey, where many who lived across the Hudson River from the World Trade Center recall the horror of watching the twin towers collapse from their homes in Hoboken and Jersey City.

More than 2,700 people died at the World Trade Center alone on 9/11, including the passengers of American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175. Another 184 were killed when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into The Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and 44 died on United Airlines Flight 93 near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.