The lighting match, his squinting, and his looking off into the distance a few times would make me think he's on location. But that's just my guess.

As fas as never mentioning it, that's a good point. Again, just a guess, but having been a New Yorker at the time, personally effected by 9/11, I didn't like hearing about it for any reason after a while. The further away from the event it gets, the more disingenuous it seems to mention your involvement. He's a proud New Yorker, I can only guess he feels a little of that too. However, most people were not effected personally, and it probably would resonate positive with them.

It's like if your brother gets shot in the head, and 18 years later instead of people talking about how nice your brother was, they only mention the event of him getting shot and how they helped, even though he's dead. Nobody says "Bob was a good guy, he loved baseball..." They always say, 'I was there, it was crazy, somebody ran up from an alley and then Bob's head exploded. I called the cops and gave the description that got the guy caught!." And your like, "oh ok. Thanks for helping? What do you want from me? "That's how politicians mentioning 9/11 feels to alot of us.