Home > Newsletter > April 2002

SOLDIER STILL

"The dumb sons of [expletive] told me not to evacuate," he said during a quick call to his best friend, Dan Hill, who had indeed been watching the disaster unfolding on TV. "They said it's just Building One. I told them I'm getting my people the [expletive] out of here."

Those were the tough last words to his best friend of a true American hero at Ground Zero on September 11th. Rick Rescorla, the security chief for brokerage firm Morgan Stanley, began the evacuation of its 2,700 employees from Tower Two of the World Trade Center. He did not take the advice of the building owners or of upper management. These were his people and he was going to see them to safety. Before the day was out he would be one of only six employees of Morgan Stanley who would be lost.

On that day not too many realized that this brave sixty-two year old man who sacrificed his life for others had a major motion picture being made about his life. This Rick Rescorla was Retired Army Colonel Cycil Richard Rescorla, the subject of the movie "We Were Soldiers" starring Mel Gibson. Unfortunately, Rescorla would never live to see the movie about his life.

Rick Rescorla was born British but chose to be an American. Always a hero, he first served as a British paratrooper, then as an intelligence officer in war torn Cyprus and as a commando for Her Majesty in Northern Rhodesia. Bored at age twenty-four serving as a detective at Scotland Yard, he joined the U.S. Army. By April of 1965 he was an officer in the 7th Cavalry, yes, that was General Custer's outfit at Little Big Horn, the first in and last out of virtually every Vietnam battle. At every battle Rescorla was a hero, even at his last.

John Olson, a Morgan Stanley director, saw Rescorla headed back up the stairs on September 11th to look for stragglers and help them out of the now burning building. Olson told Rescorla to get out, but Rescorla responded, "As soon as I make sure everyone else is out."

Rick Rescorla made one final phone call to his wife, Susan assuring her he was fine. His last words to her, "If something happens to me, I want you to know that you make my life." The phone went suddenly dead.

He died as he had lived, a true American hero. I, like many others, have written a letter to President Bush asking that Rick Rescorla receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his gallant and heroic acts on September 11th. You can sign a petition to President Bush requesting the Medal of Freedom for this true American hero on the Internet at http://www.petitiononline.com/pmfrick/petition.html.