On Sept. 11, 2001 Rick Rescorla’s worst nightmare came true. For the second time in 20 years, the World Trade Center (WTC) Twin Towers were attacked.
On this day, as the head of security for Morgan Stanley, Rescorla ignored orders to keep people in place. He used his Vietnam combat training to escort nearly 2,700 co-workers out of the WTC South Tower. His heroism drastically reduced the number of casualties sustained during the attack.
Rescorla was born in Cornwall, England in 1939, and he joined the British Army at the age of 16. After serving as a soldier and police officer, Rescorla moved to the United States in 1963. He lived in a Brooklyn hostel before he was able to enlist in the U.S. Army to serve in Vietnam.
In 1965, the British-born soldier’s courage was tested when he played a vital role in the Battle of la Drang. He co-authored a book about his experiences, “We Were Soldiers Once … and Young.” This was later turned into the 2002 Mel Gibson film, “We Were Soldiers.”
First Attack
After conducting an assessment on the WTC Towers’ security, Rescorla wrote to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, who owned the buildings, and requested better security in the parking garage. Due to the expense, they refused. In 1993, Rescorla’s worries materialized when a truck bomb exploded in the parking garage.
After the first attack on the WTC, Rescorla asked Dean Wittier to leave the building, fearing another attack was imminent. The company refused since their lease at the WTC didn’t expire until 2006. In response, Rescorla implemented evacuation drills every three months. He trained all of the company’s employees in the proper way to evacuate the building in an emergency.
Then on Sept. 11, 2001, Rescorla’s nightmare became a reality once again. He wasn’t supposed to be in the office that day. At 8:46 a.m., Rescorla was in his 44th floor office in the WTC South Tower covering a co-worker’s shift when he heard an explosion and saw the WTC North Tower burning.
Shortly after the first tower was struck, the Port Authority came over the building’s PA system and urged everyone to stay at their desks. Rescorla ignored the order, knowing that the lives of his co-workers were at risk. He promptly picked up a handheld radio, phone, and loudspeaker to defy the Port Authority’s orders and organized an evacuation of the building himself.
Heroic Action
He started ordering the over 2,000 Morgan Stanley employees in the building to evacuate down the stairs two at a time, just as they had been trained to do during his regular drills. As people were evacuating, Rescorla started singing to calm the office workers; he sang songs from his childhood and patriotic tunes like “God Bless America.”After the WTC South Tower exploded, Rescorla successfully evacuated nearly all of the approximately 2,700 employees. Despite being warned by others to stay outside, Rescorla went back into the building one more time to make sure everyone was out.
All reports say Rescorla was last seen climbing up the stairs on the South Tower’s 10th floor shortly before the building collapsed. The hero’s body was never found, and he was declared deceased three weeks later.
In 2009, Rescorla was posthumously awarded as the most prestigious civilian award, the Above & Beyond Citizen Medal; in 2019, President Trump posthumously awarded Rescorla the Presidential Citizens Medal. In 2023, the New Jersey State Senate honored Rescorla’s sacrifice to save 2,700 others by naming May 27, Rescorla’s birthday, as “Richard Rescorla Day” in New Jersey.
