Woodbridge Remembers 9/11

Folks say that the wasn't a "big" anniversary, not like the 10th commemoration. But you couldn't tell that at all in Woodbridge Tuesday night.

Township residents, police, military veterans, EMS workers, firefighters, and residents drew together at a memorial service commemorating the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, in a service sponsored by the township and the .

"We remember the pain and the suffering, the soldiers who have given us their lives in attacks overseas," said Rev. Robert Counselman of in an opening prayer. "We keep their memory alive."

Mayor John McCormac introduced speakers. The T. Nulty American Leion Post 471 gave a presentation of colors - a series of flags on the portable stage in the . The gave a heartfelt rendition of "God Bless America," and on a different note, the Gurdwara Dashmesh Darbar Youth Choir played a Sikh folk song to God, accompanied by their own instruments.

Speakers, many of them ministers, pastors, and other religious leaders from the Interfaith Clergy Council, remembered exactly where they were on 9/11.

The day after, State Senator Joseph Vitale, who has his district office on Main Street, said he saw a "change in attitude" in people he met on the street and in a nearby luncheonette. 

"There was a genuine caring" right after the events of 9/11, Vitale said. "It was an outpouring, an understanding of what the day meant."

Imam Moustafa Zayed of the Muslim Community of New Jersey, said that the new Freedom Tower, going up on the site of the World Trade Center in New York gave him hope, and made him proud.

The who died on September 11 were remembered as well.

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