A Mirror on America

(John M. Bridgeland) - On September 11, America marks the 25th anniversary of the day 19 terrorists hijacked four airliners and turned them into weapons against our country. It was among the darkest days in our history. Yet from that darkness came a remarkable display of light.

I remember every hour.

As Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, I was meeting with EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman when word came that a plane had struck the World Trade Center. Seventeen minutes later, a second plane hit the South Tower. America was under attack.

A terrible succession of events followed: the strike on the Pentagon, the evacuation of the White House, reports of another incoming plane, meetings in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, the grounding of civilian aircraft and the emergency response to New York, the Pentagon and, soon, Shanksville.

In an instant, the domestic agenda was eclipsed by the protection of the nation.

But something else happened that deserves equal remembrance.

Americans responded not only with resolve, but with generosity and compassion. President Bush later reflected that after America was attacked, “it was as if our entire country looked into a mirror and saw our better selves.”

I saw it firsthand. The White House was flooded with offers of help. Restaurant owners from Seattle loaded their van with supplies and drove 3,000 miles to New York to feed exhausted workers at Ground Zero.

They were hardly alone. Blood banks overflowed. Houses of worship opened. Volunteers appeared everywhere. At Ground Zero, people moved toward the disaster rather than away from it.

President Bush believed this civic awakening should become more than a passing emotion. He called Americans to build on the “millions of acts of kindness and decency and service” revealed after September 11. He expanded national service opportunities—in the Peace Corps, VISTA, Conservation Corps, Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, and new disaster response corps—to their highest levels then and since. Volunteering swelled with new opportunities to help neighbor and nation. Democracy, he understood, depends on what citizens willingly do for one another.

He also knew that unity required moral courage. Six days after the attacks, he visited the Islamic Center of Washington and declared: “The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. Islam is peace.” Fear would not be permitted to become prejudice.

Other moments of unity now seem unimaginable. Before President Bush addressed Congress, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle embraced him. Some things stood above politics. That memory is more poignant today.

Our public life rewards the performance of contempt, and treats the search for common ground as a kind of surrender. Yet democracy depends on habits of character: humility, courage, reconciliation and service.

This anniversary should be more than remembrance. It should be an examination of conscience. The terrorists sought to make fear our future. Instead, for a season, courage became contagious. Compassion outran hatred. Service overwhelmed despair. Strangers became neighbors.

The mirror President Bush described still waits for us.  Perhaps the most fitting memorial to those we lost would be to become, once again, the country reflected in it.