From an email, reminding us of Rick Rescorla's heroism during 9/11 and before:
Who
was Rick Rescorla? He moved to the
United States from Great Britain.
He came here to actually help us fight in Vietnam. And he fought in the famous battle of
la Drang, his picture is on the cover of the book “We Were Soldiers Once…and
Young.” He came back from Vietnam
and in time became head of Security for Morgan Stanley. After the first attack on the World
Trade Center in 1993, he knew the terrorists would come again. So what did he do? Here’s how the journalist Amanda Ripley
describes it:
From then on (since 1993), Rescorla started running
the entire company through frequent, surprise fire drills. He trained employees
to meet in the hallway between the stairwells and, at his direction, go down
the stairs, two by two, to the forty-fourth floor. He noticed they moved
slowly, so he started timing them with a stopwatch—and they got faster.
The radicalism of Rescorla’s drills cannot be
overstated. Remember, Morgan Stanley was an investment bank. Millionaire,
high-performance bankers on the 73rd floor chafed at Rescorla’s evacuation
regimen. They did not appreciate interrupting high-net-worth clients in the
middle of a meeting. Each drill, which pulled the firm’s brokers off their
phones and away from their computers, cost the company money. But Rescorla did
it anyway. He didn’t care whether he was popular.
When guests visited Morgan Stanley for training,
Rescorla made sure they all knew how to get out too. Even though the chances
were slim, Rescorla wanted them ready for an evacuation.
Then
came 9/11.
Rescorla grabbed his bullhorn, his walkie-talkie,
and his cell phone and began systematically ordering Morgan Stanley employees
to get out. They already knew what to do, even the 250 visitors who were taking
a stockbroker training class and had already been shown the nearest stairway.
Rescorla had led soldiers through the
Vietcong-controlled Central Highlands of Vietnam. He knew the brain responded
poorly to extreme fear. Back then, he had calmed his men by singing Cornish
songs from his youth. Now, in the crowded stairwell, as his sweat leached
through his suit jacket, Rescorla began to sing into the bullhorn. “Men of
Cornwall stand ye steady; It cannot be ever said ye for the battle were not
ready; Stand and never yield!”He
saved thousands of lives that day.
Thousands. But not his own.
His last recorded words were, “As soon as I make sure everyone else gets out.”
He said those words in response to Morgan Stanley Regional Manager John Olson,
who was yelling at him: “Rick, you’ve got to get out, too!”
Who
was Rick Rescorla? He was an
American by choice. He was a hero.
Of him, as of so many, it may be said of them as Steven Spender wrote: “The
names of those who in their lives fought for life; Who wore at their hearts the
fire's center. Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun; And
left the vivid air signed with their honor.”
We
owe it to our heroes, to our ancestors, and to our progeny to know names like
that. And, we owe it to
civilization’s adherents to oppose civilization’s abuse. Yes, we have an enemy, and yes it is
real. And we can never forget it. Nor can we ever or should we ever
forget what our enemy has done to us and what it plans for us still. The beginning of our wisdom here will
be the beginning of our remembrance.
But we have a lot of relearning and remembering to do. “If destruction
be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of
freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.” [Abraham Lincoln quote]
