Before I begin my tribute, I wanted to explain what Project 2,996 is for those of you who’ve never heard of it.
Project 2,996 in an internet memorial project honoring the victims of September 11th. It began in 2006, with over 3,000 bloggers signing up to honor one victim. Now in it’s third year, Project 2,996 is still going strong and remembering those who died and those who heroically gave their lives.

This year, I was assigned the name of John A. Cooper, an accountant manager at SunGard Trading Systems/BRASS. After a little research I found that Mr. Cooper was just 40 years old when he died on 9/11 in the World Trade Center attacks. He grew up in Brooklyn, excelled in sports, and called Bayonne, NJ home at the time of his death. He was a graduate of Fort Hamilton High School in Brooklyn and was described by co-workers and friends as someone who always had a big smile on his face when you saw him and someone with an amazing sense of humor who never had an unkind word for anyone he met.
School friend Mike Anagnostakis reiterated John’s kind and good nature and says that “he could not help but to bring happiness into peoples lives that he touched.”
Mike also had this to say about John:
Many a spring day, we would forsake the bus ride home from school, in favor of an hours walk home – talking all the way about sports, as young boys would do. I always thought he would become a baseball star – but, you know, he was always a star, a star in life!!
John was also known as a big hockey fan. He held season tickets at Madison Square Garden for the NY Rangers, and it was at one of these games in the early 80’s where he took Cathy DeCicco on their very first date. It was in the rowdiest section of the Garden where Cathy became a fan of hockey herself and the two fell in love. They married in 1993 and had two sons: Jefferey and Adam. Adam, the youngest was just three months old when his father was killed.
On the morning of September 11th, he was visiting a friend at Sandler O’Neill on the 104th floor of One WTC. He, along with so many innocent people, were killed in the worst acts of terrorism this country has ever seen, and hopefully ever will.
Eight years on and it’s still hard to fathom the pure hatred behind the attacks. How can one person or a group of individuals have so much evil in their hearts to kill so many innocent people? To think of all the mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers and children and grandparents and grandchildren and best friends and husbands and wives who died for what? What did they die for? Hate and intolerance and evil.
It breaks my heart…it literally shatters it into a million tiny pieces when I think of all the people who died for nothing. Nothing was gained from these attacks. Thousands more have died as a direct result of 9/11. There are those who were lucky enough to survive the WTC attacks, especially our brave firefighters, police officers, and military, have died because of illnesses attributed to Ground Zero. And those still alive today still bare the scars, both physically and mentally.
Our brave men and women have left their families and have given their lives to defend us overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan. My own brave nephew was one of those who felt compelled to do his duty to his country after 9/11. He joined the Marines, leaving behind his wife and young children at home in Illinois. He was killed in May of 2004 Iraq. This is just one of the ripple effects of 9/11. We’re all being affected by what happened eight years ago, directly and indirectly.
And at the end of the day, it all amounts to nothing. Absolutely nothing. Nothing was gained, but so many precious things were lost. Our loved ones. Our faith in humanity. Our ability to trust others. All of these have been fractured by people who were martyrs for nothing.
But you know something? In all of that nothing, it’s important to remember the very important something from 9/11. That something is the bond we all felt as Americans in the days and weeks and months following the attacks. When we looked upon our neighbors and friends and complete strangers and said, “I love you, my friend. Be safe.” When we took a moment to reflect on what was really important in our lives – our loved ones and those we held most dear. When we stopped looking at people as “them” or “the other side” and accepted everyone as “us”. Democrats and Republicans didn’t exist. We were all just Americans, holding on to each other and trying to make sense of the world around us and feeling like if we just loved each other enough and respected each other enough, we could make it through anything.
And we did. And we’ll continue to if we never forget 9/11 and all the people like John Cooper who were once just like us. Living their lives, loving their families, and trying to live the American dream. We can’t forget these people. We can’t forget their names. We can’t forget their faces. We owe it to them to continue paying tribute. We owe it to their families. And we owe it to ourselves. Because if we forget for even just one second what it was like to be united, we’ve lost the battle for nothing. And in that, we lose ourselves.
So please, let’s all take a second to just love one another today. And to make an effort to love each other EVERY day and to start respecting each other. We need to start looking past the political lines that separate us and working towards a common goal of making this country the best it can be. We need to stop, before we degrade each other in disagreement, and work our differences out like rational human beings. And love…the world is begging for more love. It’s starving for it. Can’t we show more of it? Because in the end, we’re all we’ve got, and that truly is something.
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9-11 Victim Memorial: John A Cooper
Voices of September 11th: John A. Cooper, Jr
Hudson Reporter: Bayonne Remembers: Candlelight Ceremony Marks Fourth Anniversary of 9/11
American Memorials: John A. Cooper













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