Never Yet Melted: 19 Years Ago: Rick Rescorla Saved 2700 Lives
Born in Hayle, Cornwall, May 27, 1939, to a working-class family, Rescorla joined the British Army in 1957, serving three years in Cyprus. Still eager for adventure, after army service, Rescorla enlisted in the Northern Rhodesia Police.
Ultimately finding few prospects for advancement in Britain or her few remaining colonies, Rescorla moved to the United States, and joined the US Army in 1963. After graduating from Officers’ Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia in 1964, he was assigned as a platoon leader to Bravo Company of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, Third Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). Rescorla’s serious approach to training and his commitment to excellence led to his men to apply to him the nickname “Hard Corps.”
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Hat Tip To James.
4 comments:
Sept 10th, 2001 was the night of the NFL season opener between the Denver Broncos and the NY Giants. Monday Night Football. Not a spectacular game. Quite the opposite as our (I'm a Denver fan - or was) star wide receiver, Ed McCaffery broke his leg during a wild catch.
Living in SoCal at the time, my buddy Henry called. He was at the game in Denver. Strangely he was unaware that McCaffery had broken his leg until I told him.
My wife made delicious stuffed pasta shells for dinner that night. We ate and had wine and watched the mediocre football game. The Broncos won.
Went to bed as usual. But at 5:33am the next day I woke up suddenly and annoyed that I thought I left the delicious leftover pasta shells on the counter all night. They were safely in the fridge and went back to bed until 7am.
Got up, got ready for work and fired up the faithful GMC for the drive to work. Turned on the sports radio station to catch up on the health of McCaffery and to hear the general sports news of the day.
Instead of sports, I heard Peter Jennings describing a situation in NYC where a "plane" had flown into the World Trade Center. I shook my head as I envisioned that a wayward Cessna had augured into the building. Switched stations up and down the dial and all there was was WTC plane crash news. I called my wife from the GMC and told her. She was already in front of the TV watching the scene.
As the drive to work went on, reports that a United 757 crashed into the first tower. Then an American Airlines 767 crashed into the second. Then a third PASSENGER jet flew into the Pentagon.
By the time I got to work both towers had collapsed. I went into the office like a zombie - ready to inform everyone of the news, but the entire sales force was wrapped around an old TV set, watching the destruction.
We tried to work, but we were shut down. The entire nation was shut down. Then we heard the news of Flight 93 crashing in Pennsylvania. We looked at each other and said WTF! At that point we were all sent home.
So I went on home. Nineteen years ago today.
Thank you.
RussInSoCal
I was in my office when I learned about the plane crashing into the first tower. Could not understand how such a thing could happen. It is not suppose to happen. When the second plane hit I knew immediately what was going on. Thought of Bin Laden right away. When the Pentagon got hit I called my brother in California. He was asleep, but he woke up right away when I told him "This is no joke. The U.S. is under attack. The country is at war". He thought for a second that I was telling him the US was under a nuclear attack. He said he aged 10 years in those 10 seconds. I went home, but before getting home I bought a whole bunch of VHS tapes and two VCRs and I completely taped the broadcasts from the CBC, ABC, and NBC for two days. To this day. I do not have it in me to see what I taped that day.
I went to work that morning, the same as always. As I recall, the weather was perfect that day. I was just getting good and into it. Then around 9AM central time my mom called me from her house where she was watching "Good Morning America" to tell me the WTC had been hit. She also had the radio on and I heard the announcer "America is under attack!!"
Right around this time my best friend called me as well. He works in computer networking systems. Where he worked at the time they had numerous tvs. I essentially listened to the broadcasts in real time with him and his co workers for 30 minutes.
We all tried to work as best we could. For awhile we listened to a small radio. Then someone went home and brought a portable TV. After a short while the dial up internet of era and the phones were not working. Being that these were/are needed to do our jobs we couldn't get much work done even if we could focus. We all pretty much watched the broadcasts for the rest of the day.
Editor, I'm glad you had the presence of mind to think to record these events. Like you though I don't think I'd have been able to watch either.
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