I Cogitate
| Recent Posts | My Best Blogs | Archives | Favorite Quotes | Links | Contact |
A salute to the late Rick Rescorla
Joseph Galloway, the senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder, presented a powerful column last week that everyone should read.
Rick Rescorla was an amazing individual and the epitome of a leader--nowhere near the flim-flam artists populating the staged photo ops of today, the ones who degrade those who are truly courageous.
Sept. 11 deeds make Vietnam hero larger than life
By Joseph L. Galloway
April 7, 2006
FORT BENNING, Ga. - The word ``hero'' has been so debased and overused in our modern society that it is almost meaningless when applied to the real thing.
This past week, at the U.S. Army home of the infantry, several hundred people gathered for the dedication of a larger-than-life bronze statue of a real American hero named Rick Rescorla.
The statue is iconic: the young infantry second-lieutenant platoon leader leading the way in combat, his M-16 rifle with bayonet attached ready for use. It is based largely on the photograph on the cover of the book ``We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young,'' written by Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and me, which tells the story of the deadly battles in the Ia Drang Valley in the dawn of the Vietnam War.
Rescorla was a hero of the battles of Landing Zone X-Ray and Landing Zone Albany. He earned a Silver Star, the third-highest military medal for heroism, for his sterling leadership of a platoon of Bravo Company 2nd Battalion 7th U.S. Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) in those battles in November 1965.
But that statue in the home and headquarters and training ground for the mud-foot infantry was the result of unvarnished heroism long after the British-born Rescorla left the Army, became an American citizen and retired from the Army Reserve with the rank of colonel.
The statue of the young Rescorla was born out of what he did as an older, heavier civilian vice president for security for Morgan Stanley in New York City. The brokerage firm occupied 22 floors of the South Tower in the World Trade Center.
Ever since the failed terrorist truck bombing in 1993 in the basement of that building, Rescorla was convinced that the terrorists would come back to finish the job. He urged Morgan Stanley to build its own low-rise high-security headquarters across the river in New Jersey where most of its employees lived. Not possible, he was told, because the firm had a long-term lease on those 22 floors.
Rescorla fought for the time and money needed for half a dozen surprise full evacuation drills each year. And, yes, he knew how much it cost to pull a couple thousand stockbrokers off their telephones. He knew and didn't care.
To read the reste, go here.
.
top
RSS feed
| Recent Posts | My Best Blogs | Archives | Favorite Quotes | Links | Contact |