He was at his post on the 44th floor of World Trade Center Tower 1 on September 11, 2001, when a psychotic madman flew a passenger airliner into the building. When the Port Authority came over the loudspeaker in the building and ordered everyone inside to stay put, Rescorla muttered "Bugger that Blimy Poppycock" (or something equally British) under his breath, and flipped his brain right back into Commanding Officer mode. It wasn't his first time dealing with a terrorist attack on his place of employment – in 1993, when a truck bomb went off in the basement of the Tower, Rescorla had evacuated his offices, helping everyone out until he was the last man to leave the building – and he wasn't taking any chances this time either. He grabbed a bullhorn and personally ran up and down the 22 floors that encompassed Morgan Stanley Dean Witter headquarters, quickly and calmly getting everyone out of their cubes and down the stairs. Rushing up and down the building despite the fact that he was 62 years old and dying from terminal bone marrow cancer, Rescorla didn't even consider slowing down until all 2,700 of his co-workers were safely out of the burning building. When he saw how terrified the men and women he worked with were, he went back to his old standby of singing British folk songs to try and cheer them up.That is only a sliver of the story of a man.
He was last seen on the tenth floor of the World Trade Center, headed up. Of the 2,700 people he had been charged with protecting, all but 6 survived the terrorist attack.
Why you may wonder, do I have as the image the cover of We Were Soldiers Once...and Young
? Well ... take a few minutes to read the full story.
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