No, in the long run only some of us remember. Many need to be reminded because they will post the event in their mind as 'done, over with, happened elsewhere, history'. While in the back of their mind, the anger is reserved for the public servants who work to ostensibly prevent the next incident in a reactive state.
It is a question of percieved threat which makes people either angry or concerned, I fully agree. Failure of the media to keep that perception alive permits it to fade, and even while we are engaged in a war with the enemies who perpetrated 9/11, the media permit its memory to fade.
That is as much an indictment of the media as the public, if not more so.
But while so many sat aboard hijacked airliners and placidly waited to be released in the past, 9/11 hammered into the American psyche that that just might not happen, and keeping/regaining control of the plane is essential if you want to stay alive.
So even at that base level it has caused a change in our resolve.
Unfortunately, beyond that there are many who easily forget, and just 10 years from now, those who cannot remember will be voting.
Sooner than that I think.
I think I read an article this past week about a survey of high school seniors that found that a fairly large percentage did not remember where they were on 9/11/2001 (pretty sure it was more than 50%).
If today’s seniors can not remember where they were on 9/11 and the schools are not teaching them what really happened and the news organizations rarely speak of 9/11 then in just a few years those who were 5 or less years old when it happened will have no idea at all what happened on 9/11.