- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been provided by Rutgers University Newark.

Operating Engineers, Local 825.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

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New Jersey Sharing Network.

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- This is One-On-One.

- I'm an equal American just like you are.

- The way we change Presidents in this country is by voting.

- A quartet is already a jawn, it’s just The New Jawn.

- January 6th was not some sort of violent, crazy outlier.

- I don't care how good you are or how good you think you are, there is always something to learn.

- I mean what other country sends comedians over to embedded military to make them feel better.

- People call me 'cause they feel nobody's paying attention.

_ It’s not all about memorizing and getting information, it’s what you do with that information.

- (slowly) Start talking right now.

- That's a good question, high five.

(upbeat music) - Hi everyone, Steve Adubato.

25 years later, 9/11, we recognize, we honor, we pay tribute to those who lost their lives, their family members who still grieve, and we are honored to be joined by the county executive in Essex County, Joe DiVincenzo.

Joe, it's not good to see you, but it's important that we do this, isn't it?

- Absolutely.

We got to make sure we never forget, not just us, but everyone.

And it's just not about us, it's about our kids, our grandkids know exactly what happened on that day.

- And to Joe's point, I want to be clear that what we're about to see is a piece we did 10 years ago, Joe, for the 15th year remembrance.

And what we're talking about is this is the 2016 Essex County Eagle Rock September 11th memorial ceremony.

Joe is the county executive, together with his team, built this memorial, which is powerful, painful, extraordinary.

Joe, remind folks why this memorial was built and why it still matters now more than ever.

- Yeah, listen, we all went through... That night at Eagle Rock Reservation, I was standing there when looking into New York and there was thousands of people that were there with me, and you couldn't hear a pin drop that night.

And I knew that that would be the spot for a memorial, but I need to get it done as quickly as possible because people have a tendency to forget.

I had to go out and raise $1.2 million and we were the first one that got their memorial done in one year where we honored all 3,000.

We had 700 people lose their life in the state of New Jersey, and in Essex County there was a total of 57.

But we were the first one to get our memorial done in one year until, of course, New York did what they had to do as far as opening up their memorial of what they've done there.

So we're very proud of it and it's something that's so important to all of us that we needed to get it done to set the example.

- And so, for 25 years, Joe and the team have asked me to, I don't even... Host is not the right word, just to move that program along.

And 10 years ago when we did this, and this will be seen every year moving forward on 9/11.

10 years ago- - Steve, you've been with us from the beginning, and by you doing that kept us all together and stuff.

You're special.

- Joe, you're the one who's kept everyone together.

But, 10 years ago, I got a chance to talk to survivors, excuse me, family members of people who lost their lives.

One of the survivors who was there every year, you'll see her in this documentary.

It doesn't do justice to all the people that we hope we're able to talk to, but it's powerful, it's important.

It was 10 years ago, but it'll live on.

So, Joe, to you and your team, we say thank you.

We'll continue to remember.

Never forget 9/11.

Thank you, Joe.

- Thank you.

- Check it out.

- We're talking to Helman Correa, whose son, Danny Correa, worked for an accounting firm on the 98th floor of the North Tower.

Helman spoke at this extraordinary event, and you are an amazing man, and your son, Danny, was a special young man.

How old was he?

- He was 25 years old when he started work at the World Trade Center, and he was amazing young guy.

And he was, he told me regularly, "Daddy, I'm working on the clouds," and apparently, one of those clouds took him away from us.

- You also talked about a grandchild.

- Oh, yeah, he left us the best precious gift ever, ever, ever we ever had, and that's our granddaughter, Katrina.

She's now 18 years old, and we are, I mean, we are so happy, and we have no words to describe what we're feeling right now because she's our, she is right now in our lives.

- When you were speaking today, and you were up there, and you're, I was standing right next to you, can you describe what you were feeling?

- Honestly, I was numb because this is something you can prepare, you can practice, you can do anything you want before to come over here, but soon, when you come in front of people and have to speak about your loved one, I mean, all your feelings disappear, and you're just right there.

- You've seen a few things in your very young lifetimes.

- [Marie] Thank you so much.

- (laughs) You've seen our country challenged in a lot of different ways, in wartime, tragedy.

What makes 9/11 different, special, more painful, or painful in a certain way?

- Because it happened right here on American soil, and we could see it, you know, in real time.

It wasn't something that you just watched on TV, which we did, but we were here, and we could see the smoke from New York.

And you're right, we couldn't get in here right away.

In fact, we had to go down to one of the side roads, you know, to see it, but we've, I don't know, it happened in our time, and we're watching it.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- And it just affects everybody.

- You survived 9/11.

What floor were you on?

- I was on the 21st floor of Tower One.

- Your story, the way you spoke today, was so moving in so many ways.

It is impossible for us to comprehend what you were going through, but you talked about miracles.

Talk about it again.

- It's a miracle that I'm here today.

It's a miracle that I get to live my life every day in a somewhat normal way.

I'm married, I have children.

I have friends, I have experiences.

Those things were not taken from me.

So that's a miracle that I was chosen not to be one of the people who couldn't get out.

- The 15th, I mean, every year is a special year, every year is a painful year.

Was anything different about today?

- Yes, it was very different.

I have been through the healing process now for 15 years.

And as a matter of fact, last year was the first year I was actually able to go to a memorial service.

So this year, I really felt like I could embrace the day.

Last year, I didn't really know what to expect.

It was my first time coming to the service.

So today, I just felt like it was like I got over a hurdle, that I'm over part of the hurdle of the healing process.

- What did you feel from the hundreds and hundreds of people who gathered here at the Essex County Eagle Rock 9/11 Memorial?

What were you feeling from this audience, this crowd?

- Tremendous love.

It's really an unbelievable tribute that this county does, that the county exec puts together for the citizens here to participate in and to heal together.

It's a wonderful bonding opportunity.

It's an equal playing field where we're all here to support each other.

- I know this question is gonna sound like a cliche.

It's not intended to be one.

How much do you appreciate life?

- I appreciate it very much.

There are times, however, when you have post-traumatic stress disorder, that you sometimes actually lose sight of what's going on, and that's part of the healing process too, unfortunately.

So there are moments that you realize that life is so incredibly amazing, that you just well up, and that you're so happy to be here and to be part of it.

And there's a lot of guilt too that goes along with that because you are here and some of your loved ones are not.

And then there's the numbness because of the event and how our normal systems just try to block out the terror, the fear.

Every morning, every single morning, I wake up when my husband goes to work, whether I have to wake up or not, to tell him I love him because I'm uncertain if I will see him again.

And that just goes along with the negative experience of what happened that day.

- Why is it so important that we always remember?

- I think it's important that we remember, and partly we owe it to them, we owe it to the people who lost loved ones.

I think we owe it to ourselves to remember that terrible things can happen in the United States of America and that we need to be vigilant.

I think we owe it to ourselves to remember that we have a collective obligation to do more, that there's always something else that we can do to make the lives of survivors better, to make the lives of families who lost loved ones better, and really, for those of us who are in government, who work for the United States of America, who are public servants, to remember that as proud as I am of the ridiculously hard work that the people in my law enforcement community do, we can always still probably do just a little bit more.

- Are you comfortable enough with how safe we are?

- We're never gonna be perfectly safe.

I mean, the reality is that there is danger in the world, and one of the wonderful things about the United States of America, and the things that make people wanna come here, are the liberties, the freedoms that we have.

We could probably be safer if we didn't enjoy the freedoms that we have, but that's a struggle we've been fighting for more than 200 years.

It's a struggle that we're gonna continue to fight.

But those of us who have an obligation to keep people safe are doing everything we can with the tools that we have.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] To watch more "One on One with Steve Adubato," find us online and follow us on social media.

(upbeat music) - We are talking to Maria DeRosa, who would rather not be here today, would rather not have any reason to be here at the 9/11 Memorial at Eagle Rock in Essex County, but 15 years ago- - Yeah.

- To the day, lost her sister, Antoinette.

- Yes.

Yeah, it's been 15 years, and it still seems like it was just yesterday.

And then sometimes, it seems like it was a lifetime ago.

I miss my sister very much.

She was my sister, my friend.

My mother is never the same.

Her daughter who was eight is now 23, and, you know, we try to keep her close to us, but nothing can replace her mom, obviously.

We're not trying to, but, you know, we try to be there for her.

Very difficult, I mean, I can still remember that day like it was now.

I remember exactly what I was doing and, you know, like everybody else, I'm sure, remember.

- Not like everybody else 'cause you experienced it differently.

- Yes, not like everybody else that didn't lose anybody, but I'm sure that that day is on everybody's mind, and, you know, it's tough, it's really tough.

- Tell us something about her personality.

What was she like?

- My sister always wanted to please everybody.

My sister was always about family, everything was family.

We came from a small town in Italy, and she grew up here.

She was six when we came here.

- Right outside of, in Naples, Avellino.

- Right, right, and you know, she wanted to provide better life for Megan, and she worked hard, but it was all about family, everything was family.

- People will say, "Time heals," you say... - Not really, not really.

It feels like it was just yesterday.

The pain is there.

I look at my mother, and I still see the pain in her face, and, you know, it's there, you know?

- So, (coughs) there'll be hundreds of people here at this memorial today.

Seeing everyone else here today gather at this 15th anniversary, that mean anything to you, having other people together with you?

Yes, because I feel that it should never be forgotten, that people, and I'm so happy that this memorial is here, and I hope that it will continue to be because I really feel that we need to do this, so that everybody still remembers, you know?

I never wanna forget my sister, I never wanna, and I never will.

- Deb, let me ask you, you represented, you represent the flight attendants who are here.

You've spoken here before.

You're a big part of this event.

You read off some of the names today.

Why is it so important that you participate in this ceremony every year?

- I just don't want our crew members that were killed that day to be forgotten as well 'cause they were working in the airplane that we do every day, and sometimes they forget, they're forgotten, and I'm thankful to Joe and his team and be able to speak to remember the crew members that were killed also in the line of duty.

- Talk about flight attendants and how brave they are and how those who lost their lives were.

- Each day, we go to work, as well as the pilots, they, you know, we stay and we do what we have to do on the airplane.

If there's an emergency on board with a passenger, we're trained for everything at 40,000 feet.

And even on the tarmac, on the runway, if something goes wrong, we're there, we're there to help, we're there to do what we can for passengers, and if need be, to evacuate an aircraft, and that's what we're trained to do every day we go to work, and I also wanted to say today too, that we go back to work for those crew members that were killed because they would give anything to go back to work as pilots and flight attendants because it's a job that they loved, and it's a job that we all love to do.

- Talking to Erwin, and he lost his cousin, Michael, a New York City firefighter.

- Lieutenant.

- Talk to us about him.

- Well, Michael was a nice, you know, he was the kind of guy, I remember when he was waiting to get on the department.

I mean, in New York, it's a long time, it's a family tradition, and I remember going, it's all he talked about, "Wanna be a firefighter, wanna be a firefighter," and as his wife and his mother said, on 9/11, they expected Michael to be there.

I think even if Michael was off that day, he probably would've come to the fire.

That's just how dedicated he was to the job.

I mean, he had just completed 20 years.

He could have retired, but he just loved the job.

You know, he was a very athletic, he loved scuba diving, fishing, you know, he was a very sportsman-like person.

And from what I remember, he was, you know, he was a gung-ho guy.

- [Steve] Hero.

- He was a hero, well, hero, yeah.

I don't know how many people he might've saved that day.

Nobody will ever know.

I mean, he was found in a stairwell.

Hopefully that, you know, that he did his job before he passed on.

I'm sure a lot of them did.

One will never know.

I mean, all I know is that his whole company got destroyed.

He was Ladder 11 in what, in New York City, and the whole company got just wiped out.

I mean, he lost them all.

- Erwin, what is this 15th anniversary here in Essex County at this memorial mean to you?

- Well, it means, really, what it means to me is it's something that I wanna keep going.

I mean, like I say, we will never forget, and it seems like over the years, you know, people seem to tend to forget.

I mean, there are new kids coming every day that never knew about this, and I think that's what we need to do.

It's just like everything else, we have to keep this alive in the memory of these people who lost their lives in this World Trade Center.

Not only the firemen, but all the civilians and everything else, you know?

We have to remember them and keep remembering them.

- Finally, Erwin, what do you believe we owe all those who lost their lives that day?

- Well, I guess we owe them our, you know, our respect and the fact that, hopefully, this will never happen again.

And I hope that our government is vigilant in keeping, you know, our country safe, but these people, we have to keep their memory alive.

I mean, that's all we can do.

I mean, people are gonna pass on.

A lot of the survivors, you know, the parents, the husbands, the wives, they've moved on to better life, but still in the back of their minds is that person they lost.

- We're here talking to Mr.

John Henry, who we met after the 9/11, the 15th anniversary 9/11 ceremony here at Eagle Rock in Essex County.

And I saw you, you were taking pictures, and we started a conversation.

You served our country as a veteran.

- Yes, the Navy, I was in the Navy on a carrier, USS Forrestal.

- And you were telling me a fascinating story about your connection to September 11th and, well, you share it.

- I was slated to start in the World Trade Center about a week ago, before the terrible incident.

I changed my mind because I didn't wanna commute to New York anymore, and it was something that perhaps God had intervened, and this to me is, I'm very strong about my country because my country served me through my whole life, and to strike my country means that you strike me, and I love the people which makes the country.

Without the people, we have no country.

And we lost a lot of people, friends that I knew are gone.

And this is, I come up here every year, not to take the pictures, but also just to be close and not to ever forget what happened to us.

- Do you worry that we potentially could forget?

- Yeah.

I think that our interest, strong interest in Twitter and the front page of all these, the different types of media, real quickly, and we don't retain anything.

We just, the next day, it's up, our new story, but we should never forget.

- You've seen a lot in your lifetime.

You experienced some challenging things, but you talk about your love of this country and what 9/11 means.

We're experiencing some challenging times in a lot of ways.

What would it take in your view for us to be just a little more together and united?

- Listen, we don't wanna listen to one another.

We want to put our side out, and there is no other compromise.

And we used, we didn't do that years ago.

When people would have a difference, they say, "Let's go outside."

And usually, you'll talk about it rather than to just start a fight, and if you don't like my way, then your way is not right.

This is what is today, and that disturbs me greatly.

- And so 9/11, with this ceremony here today, hundreds and hundreds of people of all races and religions and creeds came together, and you were part of it.

How did that make you feel?

- Every year when I come here, I see this is the people that don't forget.

This becomes like a orange, it's all in one piece.

You know, and you can cut into it, but it's still part of the same orange.

- We're here with Jonathan Sellitto, who has a very special reason for being here today, to remember your brother.

- We lost my brother, Matthew.

He was 23, he worked for Cantor Fitzgerald, worked on the 105th floor of the North Tower.

And we, my family and myself, we come to, to Essex in particular because we feel that it is one of the more, next to the memorial in Ground Zero, it's one of the more tranquil, if not the most tranquil memorials that I've been to around the area, around the country.

It allows us to overlook the city and still see it for the beauty that it is while remembering that day and those we lost.

So it's important for myself and for my family for healing, but I think it's important for the community because we're 15 years out now, and there are a lot of people, a lot of children, a lot of students out there that weren't even alive when this happened.

So it can be confusing for them to try to figure out why this particular day, a day that they weren't around for, had such an impact on our country.

And it's important for them to remember and to understand that a lot was given up that day because of what happened, a lot was taken from us, but we are rebuilding and we're carrying on, and that's our legacy to them.

- Tell us something about Matt.

- Oh, one thing?

Well, he was just probably one of the most genuinely kindhearted people I know.

He was the type of individual, I mean, he worked in the high-paced world of high finance and was dealing with some powerful people during his office hours, but had no problem on his way home striking conversations with the conductors.

And I remember one of the first days going into the city after September 11th, the conductor who was in charge of the train that he took every morning at 5:50 in the morning, he sat down with my father and I and cried for a good 20 minutes, saying, you know, "Your son was special.

He came to me, brought me coffee every morning."

This was the conductor, and it was just, I think, a small glimpse into the type of person he was, and, you know, we just miss him, we miss him a lot.

- It's important we do this every year, isn't it?

- I think it's more important every year that we do this for, you know, not only the reason I touched upon earlier about educating our youth about what happened, but I think, in the world that we live in today and in a lot of the madness that's going on, you know, in the end, all we have really is each other as family, as friends, as a nation, and, you know, it's important for us to remember that.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by Rutgers University Newark.

Operating Engineers, Local 825.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

EJI, Excellence in Medicine Awards.

A New Jersey health foundation program.

RWJBarnabas Health.

Learn More at RWJBH.org.

IBEW Local 102.

Delta Dental of New Jersey.

And by The New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

Promotional support provided by Meadowlands Chamber.

And by BestofNJ.com.

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