A Tribute to a 9/11 Trade Tower Facility Hero
Because What We Do Matters
This is the story of a man who served as the security officer for the 22 story Morgan Stanley office located in the South Trade Tower. Rick Rescorla not only predicted the attack, he saved thousands in an act of true heroism. "Rick", as he would become known by the 3000 Morgan Stanley employees, enlisted in the United States Army in 1963 and attended Officer Candidate School and airborne training at Fort Benning.
Rescorla was sent to Vietnam, where he served under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore. The two participated in the 1965 Battle of Ia Drang, (from which the 2002 Mel Gibson film We Were Soldiers would be adapted); Rescorla is the soldier pictured on the book jacket cover. Co-author Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore described him as "the best platoon leader I ever saw". Rescorla's men nicknamed him "Hard Core" for his bravery in battle and revered him for his good humor and compassion towards his men. Despite his tough image, according to his second wife and widow Susan Rescorla in her book, Touched by a Hero, music was "so central" to Rick's life that he sang to his troops in Vietnam to calm them – something he would later employ during 9/11.
Rescorla taught security and eventually accepted higher-paying jobs in corporate security, joining Dean Witter Reynolds soon to be Morgan Stanley at their offices at the World Trade Center in 1985. After the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, Rescorla grew concerned about a terrorist attack on his facility. Rick enlisted the help from Daniel Hill, an associate trained in Counter terrorism that he met in Rhodesia. In 1990 Rescorla asked Daniel to address his safety concerns at the Trade Towers. When Rescorla asked Hill how he would attack the building if he were a terrorist, Hill asked to see the basement. Hill pointed to an easily accessible load-bearing column, and said, "This is a soft touch. I’d drive a truck full of explosives in here, walk out, and light it off."[3] That year, Rescorla wrote a report to the Port Authority, which owns the site, insisting on the need for increased garage security. Their recommendations, which would have been expensive to implement, were mostly ignored.
Following the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Rescorla invited Mr. Hill to New York, where he hired him as a security consultant in order to analyze the building's security risks. Although no arrests had yet been made in the case, Rescorla suspected a Muslim, Pakistani connection. Hill let his beard grow and visited several mosques in the area, showing up for morning prayers at dawn. He took on the character of an anti-American Muslim, speaking fluent Arabic, with an intention to meet and interview the other visitors to the mosques. He concluded that the attack was likely planned by a radical loyalist at a mosque in New York or New Jersey. Followers of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, a radical Muslim cleric based in Brooklyn, were eventually convicted of the bombing.
Rescorla gained credibility after the bombing, which resulted in a change to the culture of Morgan Stanley, Rick believed that the firm should have moved out of the building because he continued to feel, that the World Trade Center was still a target for terrorists, and that the next attack could involve a plane crashing into one of the towers. However, his recommendation was not followed as the company's lease at the World Trade Center did not terminate until 2006. At Rescorla's insistence, all employees, including senior executives, then practiced emergency evacuations every three months.
In 1997, Morgan Stanley eventually occupied twenty-two floors in the South Tower. Feeling that the authorities lost legitimacy after they failed to respond to his 1990 warnings, Rick organized surprise fire drills, in which he trained employees to meet in the hallway between stairwells and go down the stairs, two by two, to the 44th floor. Rescorla's strict approach to these drills put him into conflict with some high-powered executives who resented the interruption to their daily activities, but he nonetheless insisted. He added photo-luminescent (glow in the dark) stair tread, floor number, door knob indicators which lit up even a darkened stair tower, he even timed employees with a stopwatch when they moved too slowly and lectured them on fire emergency basics.[8][10]
At 8:46 a.m. on the morning of September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 11 struck World Trade Center North Tower. Rescorla heard the explosion and saw the tower burning from his office window in the 44th floor of World Trade Tower South. When a Port Authority announcement came over the P.A. system urging people to stay at their desks, Rescorla ignored the announcement, grabbed his bullhorn, and began systematically ordering Morgan Stanley employees to evacuate, and then cleared the 1,000 employees in WTC 5. He directed people down a stairwell from the 44th floor, continuing to calm employees after the building lurched violently following the crash of United Airlines Flight 175, 38 floors above at 9:03 A.M. Morgan Stanley executive Bill McMahon stated that even a group of 250 people visiting the offices for a stockbroker training class knew what to do because of Rick.
Rescorla had boosted morale among his men in Vietnam by singing Cornish songs from his youth, and now he did the same in the stairwell, singing songs like one based on the Welsh song "Men of Harlech":
"Men of Cornwall stop your dreaming, Can’t you see their spearpoints gleaming?,
See their warriors’ pennants streaming, To this battlefield.
Men of Cornwall stand ye steady, It cannot be ever said ye for the battle were not ready
Stand and never yield!"
Between songs, Rescorla phoned his wife, telling her, "Stop crying. I have to get these people out safely. If something should happen to me, I want you to know I've never been happier. You made my life." After successfully evacuating most of Morgan Stanley's 3000 employees, he went back into the building. As the story goes, when one of his colleagues told him he too had to evacuate the building, Rescorla replied, "As soon as I make sure everyone else is out". He was last seen on the 10th floor, heading upward, shortly before the South Tower collapsed at 9:59 A.M. His remains were never found. Rescorla was declared dead three weeks after the attacks. A memorial to Rick remains in Hayle, Cornwall.
May we all have the wisdom to prevent tragedy and the courage to act
