Remembrance of Wars Not Past

Americans would like to put 9/11 behind them, but say it's impossible.

ByABC News
September 10, 2007, 3:52 PM

Sept. 11, 2007 — -- Each day 200 pieces of mail are still delivered to 10048 -- the phantom zip code once assigned to the World Trade Center in New York City.

Like the post office deliveries, which have dwindled from a high of 85,000 pieces a day in 2001, the grief that enveloped the American psyche after the 9/11 terror attacks has waned.

Now, six years later, the memorial service has been moved to a nearby park, final designs for the new towers are on display and some question why the ritual reading of victim's names should continue.

Time has even elapsed enough that public schools teach the events of that day as history.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll released earlier this week revealed that 60 percent of all Americans feel safer today than they did at any point after 9/11.

But 2,191 days since the terrorist attacks, many – like those who have not updated their address books with a new zip code – are still psychologically anchored at Ground Zero.

"My friends worked on the flight, died on the flight and put the terrorists on the plane," said Trina Massa, who worked for United Airlines in Boston when Flight 175 was hijacked and careened into the South Tower.

Massa, now 32 and a special needs teacher, was finally able to visit Ground Zero last year. "Part of the growing process is healing and moving on," she said.

Still, many say that the war in Iraq that made it impossible for a nation to heal. The number of troop casualties – 3,700, according to the latest government statistics – have now exceeded the near 3,000 deaths on Sept. 11, 2001.

Bomb plots in Europe, a deadly fire at the vacant Deutsche Bank building and a recent tape from Osama Bin Laden are haunting reminders that on the sixth anniversary of 9/11, the world is still a dangerous place.

"Everything we are feeling is because the war is going on," said Michael Ragsdale, a Columbia University videographer and archivist who has chronicled the recovery effort since the day after the attacks.

Ragsdale's collection of ephemera -- 6,000 posters, flyers and brochures for religious and political events surrounding the tragedy -- fills 65 three-ring binders. Much of it has been displayed in city exhibits.