President Bush is requesting a worldwide moment of remembrance at 8:46 a.m. today — the exact moment American Airlines Flight 11 hit One World Trade Center three months ago. The three-month anniversary is billed as an opportunity to show freedom’s enemies that we will not forget that dreadful Tuesday morning . . .

For me, Sept. 11 began at about 7:00 a.m. when a friend called to say she was about to have surgery on a broken leg. She was entering the operating room earlier than scheduled; the phone call was unexpected and ? early in the morning ? unwelcome. Her call was followed about 20 minutes later by her parents, who woke me to deliver a more detailed update.

About 30 minutes later, I was woken by the morning’s third phone call. This one I let ring . . . moments later, it rang again. Like so many Americans, the caller delivered a cryptic, urgent message:

“Turn on the T.V.,” he told me.

“Why?” I asked, irritated that my morning was being disturbed for a third time.

“A plane just hit the World Trade Center.”

Upon hearing the news, my mind instantly recalled the infamous 1945 Empire State Building plane crash. That accident killed 14 people, but left the building structurally sound. Surely, history was repeating itself, I thought as I fumbled with the remote.

But by the time I turned on CNN, United Airlines Flight 175 had followed the fate of AA Flight 11.

In a moment that forever changed the course of human events, everyone’s worst fears were confirmed. Over the next several hours, I, like most Americans, watched helplessly as thousands of lives were lost. I worried, I cried and then I went to work.

At 2:00 p.m., the Herald’s senior editors began planning the next day’s special issue. Photographers were already deployed around the campus and county to capture people’s reactions. Reporters worked the phones, columnists searched for answers and editors sorted through the unbelievable amount of information pouring in from around the world.

About 12 hours after we began, we finished and the next morning — 24 hours after the attacks began — the final copies hit the newsstands.

As the world pauses today to reflect on the past three months, the “what, where, when and how” of Sept. 11 is satisfactorily answered, but the “why” still haunts me.

Some suggest that American actions at home and abroad drove the hijackers to declare war. But the events since Sept. 11 seemingly dispel any such suggestions. At home, Americans have proven their resilience and charity. Abroad, our nation has liberated the people of Afghanistan and united the world like never before.

Meanwhile, the suggestion that Sept. 11 was the act of madmen driven by evil is even less satisfying and more terrifying.

In the past three months, I’ve come to accept that no explanation for Sept. 11 will ever be satisfactory. Surely, the firefighters who died so others could live, the passengers who selflessly fought their hijackers and the thousands who never knew what hit them did not deserve to die. Nothing will ever convince me otherwise.

In Rev. Billy Graham’s Sept. 14 speech, one of America’s great orators and spiritual leaders confessed he also could not understand Sept. 11.

“I’ve been asked hundreds on times in my life why God allows tragedy and suffering,” Graham said. “I have to confess that I really do not know the answer, totally, even to my own satisfaction.”

Rather, inner peace comes only from understanding that evil is subservient to optimism and hope.

“The lesson of this event is not only about the mystery of iniquity and evil, but . . . about our need for each other,” he said. “A tragedy like this could have torn our country apart. But instead it has united us and we have become a family.”

Through the ashes of the World Trade Center, our nation has seen unity unimaginable a year ago, when electoral politics divided us.

Now, as we reflect on the past three months, it is clear America is coming to peace with itself, even as it makes war on its enemies. We are more united and respectful; more reflective and more resolved.

We are, put simply, a greater nation.

Alexander Conant ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in economics. He is the editor-in-chief of The Badger Herald.