As the nation marks the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, a former White House official is reminding Americans of the extraordinary compassion and unity that emerged from the tragedy—and urging a return to those values in an era of deep division.
John M. Bridgeland, who served as Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council under President George W. Bush, recalls the day with vivid clarity. He was meeting with EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman when the first plane struck the World Trade Center. Seventeen minutes later, the second hit. "America was under attack," he writes, describing the succession of events that followed: the strike on the Pentagon, the evacuation of the White House, and the emergency response to New York, the Pentagon, and Shanksville.
In an instant, the domestic agenda was eclipsed by the protection of the nation. But Bridgeland argues that something else deserves equal remembrance: the response of Americans, not only with resolve, but with generosity and compassion. President Bush later reflected that after the attacks, "it was as if our entire country looked into a mirror and saw our better selves."
Bridgeland witnessed this firsthand. The White House was flooded with offers of help. Restaurant owners from Seattle loaded their vans with supplies and drove 3,000 miles to feed exhausted workers at Ground Zero. Blood banks overflowed, houses of worship opened, and 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 on 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, Bush 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.
Bridgeland observes that our public life now 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, he argues, 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.
