This has been slow Sunday in September. Dispiritied overtired, overeating. I have seen too much of myself and of others and then I saw a programme about the life of Rick Rescorla. The man who foresaw 9/11, lived and died his boyhood dream.
First public reasons for the mood. The sun don't shine any more and a cold wind commenced to blow. It look like rain but held off. I reattached the sleeves to my jacket. Previously the sun came has come out once more when I did this and they had to be quickly unzipped again. Today I think they are on for the rest of Autumn and soon it will be necessary to attach to the coat. Was this pessimism or realism? My forecasting of disaster has always been good.
It was not a morning for walking but I needed to ensure that a letter arrived for the 11th. At the Post Office a small sticker covered the Sunday posting information and the smaller print announced an end to Sunday collections from October. Another example of losing public support. OK the business post was collected Friday Saturday and the majority of human beings in the technologically dominated world prefer to communicate by email, especially as one can also include documents and photos. The majority of the population in the world will not know what I am talking about. There are 200 million profiles on Myspace wow.
I decided to try and resolve the issue of the relocation of Asda. Previously there was a report that the company wanted to relocate because of the limited space at its present location, although it is ideal for those like me living on the Lawe Top to the Flagg Court area who can walk back with small purchasers or use the car on our way back or for a combined visit elsewhere in the town centre. However from the company's viewpoint genuine car shoppers are put off by the limited car parking at peak times, since the manned barriers had to be removed and with it the requirement to show a receipt with the length of stay governed by the purchase. I understood that in order to continue to reduce or maintain prices, volume sales have to increase in competition with other supermarkets. The proposed relocation was along Coronation Street. Placing a supermarket in a street dedicated to the Monarch struck me as another symbolic step towards elevating the role of the Prime Minister and side lining the future Monarchy to a highly commercialised tourist attraction.
There had been a signboard at the existing site saying that a development would shortly take place and according to the press the atrocious and unused multi a storey car park by the old station was demolished to make way for a temporary car park while the existing site was redeveloped. The signboard has now disappeared along with the eyesore, but although this would make a good car park for station, and town centre, it remains fenced.
There is gasometer at one end of Coronation street opposite the new upmarket shopping development which destroys the tone of the proposed development area. There are two municipal car markets both underused, one set back so conversion to free supermarket car parks will not cause to great loss of revenue to the local authority from this source. The site is limited by a rise in ground to the site of the former St Hilda's colliery. There are new signs covering both car parks indicating a food retail development but not who for. There are derelict industrial use buildings adjacent and grassed banking behind which is a site used for travellers. This area has also been sealed while a different company is responsible for sewage work on behalf of the water authority. This will mean always taking the car and although a slight detour, it is on the way to or back from the residential home and now the hospital. However it is unlikely I will still be travelling in this direction when the new store opens. One advantage is that there will be a café restaurant. The extra walking will do be good. Always look on the bright side of life.
I am studying the official Riverside development plan which includes a proposal to develop recreational activities at Mill Dam, extending activity from Market Square down to this area and the Ferry. There is desperate need already to create a safe pedestrian crossing from the Market Square, Coronation street roadsides go the Ferry crossing and Mill Dam as there is often continuous traffic as families, couples and individuals rush to catch the ferry.
Weekends at hospitals have the same problem as at residential homes. OK British workers, especially professionals have got used to the concept of the five day week and they need time off to spend all their extra money. However residents and patients, cannot alter their conditions and needs on the basis of weekdays and weekends. Against expectation relatives and friends visit less at weekends than they do at weekends.
Once upon a time 3pm Saturday afternoon was the time when professional football was played. The FA Cup was also played on Saturday afternoons with replays midweek Then came the live televising of First Division/Premiership matches and the doorway was opened for televising Cup/ European Competitions and World Competition. For several years it is possible to regularly watch the Spanish and the Italian League once British players were recruited. Now the number of Saturday afternoon 3pm games has reduced with some games played at midday and other others early evening, and then on Sundays at midday and at 4pm. There was regularly a Monday evening game with European and other Cup games played Tuesday to Thursday. We have to change our lives to watch football because of the power of Television. The price of tickets continues to increase beyond the rate of inflation as do players wages and transfer fees. But all this happens because of public demand and willingness to pay whether to travel to watch matches lives or the additional fees for Satellite and Cable.
The better paid the doctor the more he controls when and how he works and public needs and demands are considered irrelevant.
The treatment of those with severe memory loss illness is also changing. When my mother was first diagnosed and the question of residential care arose I was told that there were no establishments which would take those with this psychological and those whose condition was primarily physical, although over time those with the psychological develop physical problems which overshadow the psychological and those who enter care because of physical problems also develop psychological. The distinctions become blurred. The situation in the home were my mother was resident, I begin to use the past tense, is that those with physical problems inhabit the ground floor and those with psychological the top but there has been some planned mixing for special events or in use of the garden and external smoking area.
In hospital there are two problems, as there has always been in relation to the elderly. Mixing those who are going to get better with those who are not and mixing those with major psychological problems with those who do not. Sometimes there are no solutions which meet the needs of everyone
So I eat too much, I did insufficient exercise, I played around with a communication, dissatisfied with what I had said and what I had not, perhaps it will not be sent at all. There are piles of work to be sorted to be made into sets grows, and correspondence issues, some could save money lay unattended. There are various jobs around the house to do or organise, some involve getting help. The battery charging unit on my digital camera is playing up again.
The day turned evening and dissatisfaction with myself became stronger especially as I missed the beginning of the man who predicted 9/11. I watched the rest of the programme and became even more dissatisfied with how I had spent my day and my life
I watched 9/11 as it happened. I was visiting my mother and her sister after they had a full lunch and I light one because of going out for a celebratory meal in central London that evening. The television was turned on for them and when the first plane crashed I thought the burning tower was part of the afternoon disaster movie. I had arrange a cable channel which was as much for me and for them so when I realised that the scene was on going I switched quickly between ITV and BBC and then to 24 hour News, BBC, ITV, Sky, and the USA news services, CNN and Fox and realised that this was a live happening and switched back just in time to witness the entry of the second plane. What did I do, watch on with the sound which would considerably upset my aunt, although seven then I was not certain how my mother would respond as she would often become upset without apparent external cause and unaware of situations which would have in times past, or find something else for them to see. I thought the event too important to not watch and continued to experience with them until it was time for me to walk to the railway station and make the forty minute journey into London.
The mood of travellers was difficult to gauge as it is always is in London at rush hour times as mostly people do not know each other or want to. Usually it is only if one travels at a time when children are going or returning from school, a family is making an outing or tourist visitors are onboard that one is able to overhear conversations. Today a sense of what was happening outside, and its impact, was obtained when two young women, school girls, but on a mission of some kind arrived and one was in constant use of a mobile phone sharing information with the other. The conversation was centred on the purpose of their visit but there was also references to the impact of events in New York and Washington on the centre of London, with reference to the banning of flights above the capital and then rumour that London was being closed.
The restaurant arranged for the meal is usually very lively full of talk but that evening it was notably quiet. I watched the TV for the rest of the visit and then when I returned home and the event had the same impact as when I switched on the news one morning ten year ago and learnt that Princess Diana had been involved in a serious accident, and then of her death. I was devastated by both events, more than I had been by then by some personal experiences in my life beforehand. I understood that the grief was also for those situation previously unexpressed but after 9/11 it was for all those involved, and it has remained so.
A wound that remains to be healed and where I hope for the future of humanity it never is, along with the reality of Stalinism, Fascism and Pol Pot, of Rwanda and, and, and the list is endless. Of course those directly affected must find the way to live on purposefully and enjoyably because otherwise individual self sacrificing would have had no point. What upset me now is that that I did not know the story of Rick Rescorla before. I have yet to settle on a list of 101 heroes of my time and those already added since the first brief list are all recent discoveries. Rick Rescorla is one more
He was born only two months after me as Cyril Richard Rescorla in the town of Hayle, Cornwall. I have visited Hayle and its long and wide beach of sand dunes, known as Towans staying for a fortnight in a cottage. Thirty years ago were a large number of holiday homes on stilts not encountered elsewhere until visiting Gruissan Lanuedoc-Rousillian, Southern France.
In 1943 Hayle became the headquarters for the 175 Infantry regiment the US Infantry Division and Rick came to idolise the visitors as they prepared to free Europe from Nazism and the War and the experience of the US allies affected him greatly.
It is only to this point that our lives had connections because Rick who hated the name Cyril, I also wonder if he also Casablanca as a child, was a good sportsman and an avid Boxer. I wanted to join the school boxing club after my first and only fight in the inter school House competition. I was hit hard and noted that this was OK and was upset when the fight was stopped in the second round of three and thrilled when the House captain suggested that I join in the school club and very disappointed when my aunt in particular said no. I went to some Boxing club matches to lend support but this only reinforced the feeling of a missed opportunity. It is not stated if Rick attended a professional match between a British and USA Heavy Weight but he is recorded as having supported the American contender.
Rick joined the British Army in 1957 training as a paratrooper with the Parachute regiment and surviving with an intelligence unit in Cyprus and a paramilitary police inspector in Northern Rhodesia. He joined the metropolitan Police after service which I assume was part of the National Service, where as I failed the medical.
Rick met the man who was to become his best friend, Daniel J Hill, an American while serving in Northern Rhodesia where Hill is said to have worked as a Mercenary having a background of service in Hungry, the Lebanon an was also involved in the Bay of Pigs mission.
The two men enlisted in the US Army in 1963 with a view to combat in Vietnam and he graduated an officer as a Platoon Leader in the 7th Calvary participating in the 1965 Battle of La Drang described in the book and film We Were Soldiers once, and Young he is the soldier on the front cover. He is also mentioned in a book about involvement in the battle, called Baptism by Larry Gwim and there is a chapter entitled Rescorla's game. He was awarded a Silver Star, the Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster, a Purple Heart and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry.
The TV programme highlights that what in fact marked out Rescorla from other men was not his personal bravery but his involvement with his men. He knew all about them, their families and their former lives, and he viewed any injury and loss of life as his personal responsibility and failure. It is said by his friends that the loss of men was at the core of how he reacted on 9/11.
After Vietnam he seized the opportunity to become a US Citizen and participate GI Benefits of a university education gaining a Batchelor's and Master's degrees in Literature at Oklahoma, moving to South Carolina where he taught criminal justice for three years and published a textbook on the subject. He continued to serve in the Army reserve retiring as a Colonel in 1990. He married and had two children moving to New Jersey to join the financial services firm Dean Witter as their security director. When the firm merged with Morgan Stanley in 1997 he became the director of security at the Morgan Stanley HQ at the World Trade centre with the firm occupying about 20 floors at the top end of the building. His marriage ended in the mid 1990's . He then developed prostate cancer meeting his future second wife Susan Greer in 1998 and when the cancer went into remission he sand the Cornish Ballad, the White Rose sending her white roses every week. The couple were married in Florida in 1999. This is the background to one of the most extraordinary of men in relation to events at the World Trade Centre.
In 1992 Rescorla had warned the owners of the World Trade Centre on the possibility of a truck bomb attack on he pillars in the basement garage. No action was taken and when Islamist used this method in the1993 attack he was instrumental in evacuating the building and was the last man to leave.
It is at this point that his story becomes shockingly surreal because he and Dan Hill prepared a report for the Trade Centre Owners on the possibility of crashing civilian plane into one the towers. No action was taken. Rescorla suggested that his employers leave the building as a consequence but although it is said the suggestion was taken seriously the company were committed to a lease which did not expire until 2006. At his insistence all members of the company, including senior executives practiced an evacuation of the building every three months. As employees at all level stated on camera he instilled in everyone the message at the first indication of a problem you immediately leave the building.
On September 11th 2001 Rick was not scheduled to be at work but covered the shift of a deputy who was going on holiday and attended a lunchtime meeting to discuss a Morgan Stanley lawsuit against the site owners regarding security lapses which led to the 1993 attack. Rick should have been preparing to attend the wedding of his step daughter in Italy.
It is recorded fact that officials of the building owners not only asked those in the other buildings to remain where they were after Tower one was attacked but request everyone to return in Tower 2 when they commenced to follow the orders of Rick to leave according to the company approved security plan. The reasoning behind the his request was that the mass departure would hamper the rescue work in Tower 1 and those involved did not expect a second attack or that the building would collapse, both realistic assumptions and the problem of departing numbers getting in the way of rescue operations was a real one.
It is also recorded testimony and Rick who loved to sing after insisting that the 2800 employees in tower 2 and 1000 and a separate building on the complex leave in an orderly fashion remembering they were Americans and everyone will be talking about you tomorrow, Sand God Bless America, military and Cornish songs over his bullhorn to help evacuees stay calm as hey left the building. One song was an adaptation of Men of Harlech.
On my recent visit to the Theatre Royal I climbed up and then down four flights of stairs and this takes time and careful effort. At Football matches I so experience he problem when a mass of people all want to exit at the same time and the number of stairways is limited. At the WTC tower 2 some Morgan Stanley staff had to descend 75 floors to ground level. On six of the Morgan Stanley employees did not survive 2794 did and that number is worth remembering. Moreover because of ongoing telephone communication Rick is known to have been on at least the 72 floor checking that it had been cleared and he was on the 10th when the building collapsed. He also needs to be underlined that his managerial responsibility was restricted to Morgan Stanley and not the lower forty floors. He could have left when he had done his job. It is established that Rick continued to feel strongly that he had failed the men under his command who died, and those who knew him well say now that it was not in his blood to have left before he was certain all those who could had left and that while he would have wanted to leave and return to his wife, family and friends, he would not have wanted his death to have been otherwise.
James B Stewart has written his biography Heart of a Soldier and the documentary I watched last night was created in 2005. In 2006 after a campaign led by his wife a statue to Rick was unveiled at Fort Benning in Georgia
As his wife points out in her web site rickrescorla.com there are countless others who merit similar attention for their bravery and self sacrifice that day especially his deputies Wesley Mercer, Jorge Valesquez, and Godwin Forde who followed him back up the stairs of the burning building to check the situation and perished with him. Remember all of them.
See had hear Rick in interview in 1999
http://atomfilms.shockwave.com/af/content/voice_prophet
First public reasons for the mood. The sun don't shine any more and a cold wind commenced to blow. It look like rain but held off. I reattached the sleeves to my jacket. Previously the sun came has come out once more when I did this and they had to be quickly unzipped again. Today I think they are on for the rest of Autumn and soon it will be necessary to attach to the coat. Was this pessimism or realism? My forecasting of disaster has always been good.
It was not a morning for walking but I needed to ensure that a letter arrived for the 11th. At the Post Office a small sticker covered the Sunday posting information and the smaller print announced an end to Sunday collections from October. Another example of losing public support. OK the business post was collected Friday Saturday and the majority of human beings in the technologically dominated world prefer to communicate by email, especially as one can also include documents and photos. The majority of the population in the world will not know what I am talking about. There are 200 million profiles on Myspace wow.
I decided to try and resolve the issue of the relocation of Asda. Previously there was a report that the company wanted to relocate because of the limited space at its present location, although it is ideal for those like me living on the Lawe Top to the Flagg Court area who can walk back with small purchasers or use the car on our way back or for a combined visit elsewhere in the town centre. However from the company's viewpoint genuine car shoppers are put off by the limited car parking at peak times, since the manned barriers had to be removed and with it the requirement to show a receipt with the length of stay governed by the purchase. I understood that in order to continue to reduce or maintain prices, volume sales have to increase in competition with other supermarkets. The proposed relocation was along Coronation Street. Placing a supermarket in a street dedicated to the Monarch struck me as another symbolic step towards elevating the role of the Prime Minister and side lining the future Monarchy to a highly commercialised tourist attraction.
There had been a signboard at the existing site saying that a development would shortly take place and according to the press the atrocious and unused multi a storey car park by the old station was demolished to make way for a temporary car park while the existing site was redeveloped. The signboard has now disappeared along with the eyesore, but although this would make a good car park for station, and town centre, it remains fenced.
There is gasometer at one end of Coronation street opposite the new upmarket shopping development which destroys the tone of the proposed development area. There are two municipal car markets both underused, one set back so conversion to free supermarket car parks will not cause to great loss of revenue to the local authority from this source. The site is limited by a rise in ground to the site of the former St Hilda's colliery. There are new signs covering both car parks indicating a food retail development but not who for. There are derelict industrial use buildings adjacent and grassed banking behind which is a site used for travellers. This area has also been sealed while a different company is responsible for sewage work on behalf of the water authority. This will mean always taking the car and although a slight detour, it is on the way to or back from the residential home and now the hospital. However it is unlikely I will still be travelling in this direction when the new store opens. One advantage is that there will be a café restaurant. The extra walking will do be good. Always look on the bright side of life.
I am studying the official Riverside development plan which includes a proposal to develop recreational activities at Mill Dam, extending activity from Market Square down to this area and the Ferry. There is desperate need already to create a safe pedestrian crossing from the Market Square, Coronation street roadsides go the Ferry crossing and Mill Dam as there is often continuous traffic as families, couples and individuals rush to catch the ferry.
Weekends at hospitals have the same problem as at residential homes. OK British workers, especially professionals have got used to the concept of the five day week and they need time off to spend all their extra money. However residents and patients, cannot alter their conditions and needs on the basis of weekdays and weekends. Against expectation relatives and friends visit less at weekends than they do at weekends.
Once upon a time 3pm Saturday afternoon was the time when professional football was played. The FA Cup was also played on Saturday afternoons with replays midweek Then came the live televising of First Division/Premiership matches and the doorway was opened for televising Cup/ European Competitions and World Competition. For several years it is possible to regularly watch the Spanish and the Italian League once British players were recruited. Now the number of Saturday afternoon 3pm games has reduced with some games played at midday and other others early evening, and then on Sundays at midday and at 4pm. There was regularly a Monday evening game with European and other Cup games played Tuesday to Thursday. We have to change our lives to watch football because of the power of Television. The price of tickets continues to increase beyond the rate of inflation as do players wages and transfer fees. But all this happens because of public demand and willingness to pay whether to travel to watch matches lives or the additional fees for Satellite and Cable.
The better paid the doctor the more he controls when and how he works and public needs and demands are considered irrelevant.
The treatment of those with severe memory loss illness is also changing. When my mother was first diagnosed and the question of residential care arose I was told that there were no establishments which would take those with this psychological and those whose condition was primarily physical, although over time those with the psychological develop physical problems which overshadow the psychological and those who enter care because of physical problems also develop psychological. The distinctions become blurred. The situation in the home were my mother was resident, I begin to use the past tense, is that those with physical problems inhabit the ground floor and those with psychological the top but there has been some planned mixing for special events or in use of the garden and external smoking area.
In hospital there are two problems, as there has always been in relation to the elderly. Mixing those who are going to get better with those who are not and mixing those with major psychological problems with those who do not. Sometimes there are no solutions which meet the needs of everyone
So I eat too much, I did insufficient exercise, I played around with a communication, dissatisfied with what I had said and what I had not, perhaps it will not be sent at all. There are piles of work to be sorted to be made into sets grows, and correspondence issues, some could save money lay unattended. There are various jobs around the house to do or organise, some involve getting help. The battery charging unit on my digital camera is playing up again.
The day turned evening and dissatisfaction with myself became stronger especially as I missed the beginning of the man who predicted 9/11. I watched the rest of the programme and became even more dissatisfied with how I had spent my day and my life
I watched 9/11 as it happened. I was visiting my mother and her sister after they had a full lunch and I light one because of going out for a celebratory meal in central London that evening. The television was turned on for them and when the first plane crashed I thought the burning tower was part of the afternoon disaster movie. I had arrange a cable channel which was as much for me and for them so when I realised that the scene was on going I switched quickly between ITV and BBC and then to 24 hour News, BBC, ITV, Sky, and the USA news services, CNN and Fox and realised that this was a live happening and switched back just in time to witness the entry of the second plane. What did I do, watch on with the sound which would considerably upset my aunt, although seven then I was not certain how my mother would respond as she would often become upset without apparent external cause and unaware of situations which would have in times past, or find something else for them to see. I thought the event too important to not watch and continued to experience with them until it was time for me to walk to the railway station and make the forty minute journey into London.
The mood of travellers was difficult to gauge as it is always is in London at rush hour times as mostly people do not know each other or want to. Usually it is only if one travels at a time when children are going or returning from school, a family is making an outing or tourist visitors are onboard that one is able to overhear conversations. Today a sense of what was happening outside, and its impact, was obtained when two young women, school girls, but on a mission of some kind arrived and one was in constant use of a mobile phone sharing information with the other. The conversation was centred on the purpose of their visit but there was also references to the impact of events in New York and Washington on the centre of London, with reference to the banning of flights above the capital and then rumour that London was being closed.
The restaurant arranged for the meal is usually very lively full of talk but that evening it was notably quiet. I watched the TV for the rest of the visit and then when I returned home and the event had the same impact as when I switched on the news one morning ten year ago and learnt that Princess Diana had been involved in a serious accident, and then of her death. I was devastated by both events, more than I had been by then by some personal experiences in my life beforehand. I understood that the grief was also for those situation previously unexpressed but after 9/11 it was for all those involved, and it has remained so.
A wound that remains to be healed and where I hope for the future of humanity it never is, along with the reality of Stalinism, Fascism and Pol Pot, of Rwanda and, and, and the list is endless. Of course those directly affected must find the way to live on purposefully and enjoyably because otherwise individual self sacrificing would have had no point. What upset me now is that that I did not know the story of Rick Rescorla before. I have yet to settle on a list of 101 heroes of my time and those already added since the first brief list are all recent discoveries. Rick Rescorla is one more
He was born only two months after me as Cyril Richard Rescorla in the town of Hayle, Cornwall. I have visited Hayle and its long and wide beach of sand dunes, known as Towans staying for a fortnight in a cottage. Thirty years ago were a large number of holiday homes on stilts not encountered elsewhere until visiting Gruissan Lanuedoc-Rousillian, Southern France.
In 1943 Hayle became the headquarters for the 175 Infantry regiment the US Infantry Division and Rick came to idolise the visitors as they prepared to free Europe from Nazism and the War and the experience of the US allies affected him greatly.
It is only to this point that our lives had connections because Rick who hated the name Cyril, I also wonder if he also Casablanca as a child, was a good sportsman and an avid Boxer. I wanted to join the school boxing club after my first and only fight in the inter school House competition. I was hit hard and noted that this was OK and was upset when the fight was stopped in the second round of three and thrilled when the House captain suggested that I join in the school club and very disappointed when my aunt in particular said no. I went to some Boxing club matches to lend support but this only reinforced the feeling of a missed opportunity. It is not stated if Rick attended a professional match between a British and USA Heavy Weight but he is recorded as having supported the American contender.
Rick joined the British Army in 1957 training as a paratrooper with the Parachute regiment and surviving with an intelligence unit in Cyprus and a paramilitary police inspector in Northern Rhodesia. He joined the metropolitan Police after service which I assume was part of the National Service, where as I failed the medical.
Rick met the man who was to become his best friend, Daniel J Hill, an American while serving in Northern Rhodesia where Hill is said to have worked as a Mercenary having a background of service in Hungry, the Lebanon an was also involved in the Bay of Pigs mission.
The two men enlisted in the US Army in 1963 with a view to combat in Vietnam and he graduated an officer as a Platoon Leader in the 7th Calvary participating in the 1965 Battle of La Drang described in the book and film We Were Soldiers once, and Young he is the soldier on the front cover. He is also mentioned in a book about involvement in the battle, called Baptism by Larry Gwim and there is a chapter entitled Rescorla's game. He was awarded a Silver Star, the Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster, a Purple Heart and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry.
The TV programme highlights that what in fact marked out Rescorla from other men was not his personal bravery but his involvement with his men. He knew all about them, their families and their former lives, and he viewed any injury and loss of life as his personal responsibility and failure. It is said by his friends that the loss of men was at the core of how he reacted on 9/11.
After Vietnam he seized the opportunity to become a US Citizen and participate GI Benefits of a university education gaining a Batchelor's and Master's degrees in Literature at Oklahoma, moving to South Carolina where he taught criminal justice for three years and published a textbook on the subject. He continued to serve in the Army reserve retiring as a Colonel in 1990. He married and had two children moving to New Jersey to join the financial services firm Dean Witter as their security director. When the firm merged with Morgan Stanley in 1997 he became the director of security at the Morgan Stanley HQ at the World Trade centre with the firm occupying about 20 floors at the top end of the building. His marriage ended in the mid 1990's . He then developed prostate cancer meeting his future second wife Susan Greer in 1998 and when the cancer went into remission he sand the Cornish Ballad, the White Rose sending her white roses every week. The couple were married in Florida in 1999. This is the background to one of the most extraordinary of men in relation to events at the World Trade Centre.
In 1992 Rescorla had warned the owners of the World Trade Centre on the possibility of a truck bomb attack on he pillars in the basement garage. No action was taken and when Islamist used this method in the1993 attack he was instrumental in evacuating the building and was the last man to leave.
It is at this point that his story becomes shockingly surreal because he and Dan Hill prepared a report for the Trade Centre Owners on the possibility of crashing civilian plane into one the towers. No action was taken. Rescorla suggested that his employers leave the building as a consequence but although it is said the suggestion was taken seriously the company were committed to a lease which did not expire until 2006. At his insistence all members of the company, including senior executives practiced an evacuation of the building every three months. As employees at all level stated on camera he instilled in everyone the message at the first indication of a problem you immediately leave the building.
On September 11th 2001 Rick was not scheduled to be at work but covered the shift of a deputy who was going on holiday and attended a lunchtime meeting to discuss a Morgan Stanley lawsuit against the site owners regarding security lapses which led to the 1993 attack. Rick should have been preparing to attend the wedding of his step daughter in Italy.
It is recorded fact that officials of the building owners not only asked those in the other buildings to remain where they were after Tower one was attacked but request everyone to return in Tower 2 when they commenced to follow the orders of Rick to leave according to the company approved security plan. The reasoning behind the his request was that the mass departure would hamper the rescue work in Tower 1 and those involved did not expect a second attack or that the building would collapse, both realistic assumptions and the problem of departing numbers getting in the way of rescue operations was a real one.
It is also recorded testimony and Rick who loved to sing after insisting that the 2800 employees in tower 2 and 1000 and a separate building on the complex leave in an orderly fashion remembering they were Americans and everyone will be talking about you tomorrow, Sand God Bless America, military and Cornish songs over his bullhorn to help evacuees stay calm as hey left the building. One song was an adaptation of Men of Harlech.
On my recent visit to the Theatre Royal I climbed up and then down four flights of stairs and this takes time and careful effort. At Football matches I so experience he problem when a mass of people all want to exit at the same time and the number of stairways is limited. At the WTC tower 2 some Morgan Stanley staff had to descend 75 floors to ground level. On six of the Morgan Stanley employees did not survive 2794 did and that number is worth remembering. Moreover because of ongoing telephone communication Rick is known to have been on at least the 72 floor checking that it had been cleared and he was on the 10th when the building collapsed. He also needs to be underlined that his managerial responsibility was restricted to Morgan Stanley and not the lower forty floors. He could have left when he had done his job. It is established that Rick continued to feel strongly that he had failed the men under his command who died, and those who knew him well say now that it was not in his blood to have left before he was certain all those who could had left and that while he would have wanted to leave and return to his wife, family and friends, he would not have wanted his death to have been otherwise.
James B Stewart has written his biography Heart of a Soldier and the documentary I watched last night was created in 2005. In 2006 after a campaign led by his wife a statue to Rick was unveiled at Fort Benning in Georgia
As his wife points out in her web site rickrescorla.com there are countless others who merit similar attention for their bravery and self sacrifice that day especially his deputies Wesley Mercer, Jorge Valesquez, and Godwin Forde who followed him back up the stairs of the burning building to check the situation and perished with him. Remember all of them.
See had hear Rick in interview in 1999
http://atomfilms.shockwave.com/af/content/voice_prophet
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