9/11 remembered: The story of a hero

Moments after the first airliner slammed into the North Tower, Rick Rescorla threw on his suit jacket, and left his office on the 44th floor of 2 World Trade Center, bullhorn, walkie-talkie and cell phone in hand. It was shortly after 8:46 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, and an otherwise cloudless sky was filling with thick black smoke that now poured from the North Tower. The Port Authority of New York, the World Trade Center’s owner and operator, urged South Tower occupants to stay at their desks – an urging Rescorla promptly cast aside. One could argue that Rescorla’s life had led to this point in time. Originally from the seaport town of Hayle, Cornwall, England, he’d spent his life leading and serving – as a British paratrooper, a military intelligence officer in Cyprus, a commando in Rhodesia, and a detective for Scotland Yard’s famous “Flying Squad”.