But the attacks of 9/11 were aimed at America as a whole, and succeeded as such. Each and every one of us lost something important, permanently, that day, even if no one we knew personally was hurt or killed or left bereaved. Our way of life was challenged in an especially vicious way, and our collective peace of mind was severely reduced, maybe forever. Our shared pride and joy over beating the Sovs in the Cold War has faded fast into bitter divisiveness over prosecuting the Global War on Terror, preserving our individual freedoms in an era of danger and strife, keeping the lid on nuclear proliferation worldwide, and balancing our ultimate national sovereignty against the desires and agendas of other countries.

This essay is intended to be short and very simple. The topic is not a political one. All of us (regardless of party affiliation, if any) owe it to ourselves -- and to the thousands who suffered during 9/11/01 -- to memorialize that searing moment and remind each other, today and henceforth, of the perpetual need for vigilance as the true and inescapable price of liberty.

A easy, unobtrusive, but lasting gesture can accomplish these goals, to remember and remind. I did it myself on the afternoon of 9/11/01. Often since then I’ve thought of sharing this idea with other people beyond my direct acquaintances, but for one reason or other I refrained. As the day approaches to “change the clocks” in many parts of America, by turning them back by an hour on the morning of October 31, the moment seems right to finally say something.

Many clocks in homes and offices from coast to coast are of the analog (round faced) type with hands to show the time of day, and another hand that can be set as an alarm clock. In a lot of cases (including two such clocks in my house) the clock is relied on only to tell time, and the alarm feature is seldom if ever used. Being by nature a somewhat quantitative, analytical person, and detail oriented perhaps to a fault, for decades I’d asked myself what to do about this “extra” unused arm on the face of the clock. Leaving it pointing to some odd and meaningless time seemed so untidy -- but you do have to point it somewhere.

Back in the late 1980s, working in an office, I figured neatness counted, so I set the arm to 6 o’clock, that is, pointing straight down. Then, in the mid ‘90s, as I began my research on national defense in preparation to change careers from actuary to writer, I moved the unused alarm arms of my clocks at home to 7:55, as a reminder of the time the first bombs fell at Pearl Harbor (give or take a few minutes, as accounts of the exact timing vary slightly among historians and eye witnesses). On 9/11/01, amid the eerie afternoon silence as not one car moved on the road past my home and not one plane flew in the sky, I shifted the same arms to 8:45. Why?

At 8:45 a.m., on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles, with 92 people aboard, slammed into the north tower of the World Trade Center. Thus began what commentators have often called our generation’s Pearl Harbor.

As I sit at my desk now, writing this on my laptop, the clock in my office stares at me, with that extra arm -- for the built-in alarm clock feature I never use -- still set at 8:45. It’s been like that for more than three years. I occasionally wonder what terrible event -- assuming I survive it and clocks even then still matter -- might cause me to move that otherwise-unused arm again.

At the end of this month, in most states, you need to adjust your clocks anyway. Think about doing something extra, to mark that awful moment that changed the world, to remember and honor the victims and the heroes of that day and its aftermath, and maybe bring our divided country closer just a little.

JoeBuff.Com / Joe Buff Inc. Joe Buff, President Dutchess County, New York E-Mail readermail@JoeBuff.Com