Posted on 03/05/2005 10:19:27 AM PST by Lexington Green
Rick Rescorla helped save thousands before losing his life at World Trade Center
In Susan Rescorla's eyes, the very traits that made her late husband a hero on 9/11 were forged on the battlefields of Vietnam almost 40 years ago.
"He was a soldier... and a warrior," she whispered, shortly after an Al Reid portrait of Rick Rescorla, an Officer Candidate School Hall of Famer who led more than 2,700 Morgan Stanley employees to safety after terrorists crashed a plane into the World Trade Center, was unveiled Thursday at the National Infantry Museum. "He made one last sweep, as he'd learned at Ia Drang, and was determined not to leave a single soldier behind."
Six Morgan Stanley security men died that day, including their chief, Rescorla.
"But if he hadn't done his job the way he did," said journalist and author Joe Galloway, "the death toll at the Trade Center would probably be twice what it is today."
Galloway, who was in town earlier this week, met Rescorla at the 1965 battle at Ia Drang. It is Rescorla, carrying a rifle with a fixed bayonet, who is pictured on the cover of Galloway's best-selling Vietnam War book, "We Were Soldiers Once... and Young."
That picture inspired Reid, a staff artist at the museum, when he was given the task of painting the portrait. "It was really a work of love," he said at the unveiling, shortly after receiving a bear hug from Susan Rescorla. "I've been working on it for a couple of months and we plan to put it on the first floor in our Global War on Terrorism exhibit."
Susan also presented the museum with a case full of Rescorla's many military medals, including the Silver Star, Bronze Star and Purple Heart.
"About six months ago," Susan Rescorla said, "I decided that Rick's medals should be put someplace where people could see them and hear his story. And what better place than here? I always am trying to raise enough money to build a bronze statue of Rick. That, too, would go here and be moved to the new infantry museum when it is finished."
Always motivated
Because Rescorla was born in England and served in the British Army before immigrating to the United States and enlisting in the Army here, the British Broadcasting Co. sent a reporter to cover Thursday's event.
After Vietnam, where he served with the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, Rescorla became a U.S. citizen.
"Rick was proud to call himself an American," Susan Rescorla said. "And I'm proud that he was, too."
One of Rescorla's oldest friends, Texan Fred McBee, said the unveiling was "one occasion I would not have missed. Rick and I were in the same writing program at the University of Oklahoma after the war. He could have been a great writer. He was good at whatever he did."
Susan Rescorla said the pain of losing her husband will never go away. But she's doing everything possible to keep his memory alive.
"I make speeches, both here and in England," she said. "I visit injured troops at Walter Reed, many of them injured in Vietnam. I've never really associated that much with the other victims of 9/11. But I have seen the pain in their eyes."
She often gives Walter Reed patients a copy of "Heart of a Soldier," a book written about Rescorla by James Stewart. And she'll give folks who donate $25 or more for the Rescorla statue a copy of the book.
Nope, not much reminded of John Kerry. At all.
PING
Thank God for the true American heroes!
,
NEVER FORGET
For RICK RESCORLA...
...was a Soldier Once...
...and for ALL..!!!
http://www.lzxray.com
NEVER FORGET
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Where RICK RESCORLA walkded in Vietnam, exactly:
http://www.lzxray.com/guyer_set1.htm
(See 1st Photo - U.S. 7th Cavalry's Base Camp at An Khe-1965)
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911 Remembered: RICK RESCORLA was a Soldier
http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/978534/posts
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The bravest man I ever knew
http://www.Freerepublic.com/forum/a3bbba50d705a.htm
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bookmark
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FOLLOW ME in new -Time of War- =
The Vietnam Vet / RICK RESCORLA
http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/news/689782/posts
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Another Real Deal
Loved 'We Were Soldiers'. It's one of only six or so DVD movies I've actually gone out and bought.
The others are 'Braveheart,' 'Patton,' 'Saving Private Ryan,' 'Patriot,' 'Ben-Hur,' 'King of Kings,' and 'Quo Vadis.'
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"QUO VADIS" (Where Go You?) =
Another story of COURAGE in the face of charging Lions let loose on kneeling Christians at ROME's Colesium
Another turning point in History
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Sacrifice is as Sacrifice does..?
MEL's -PASSION- sparked by -WE WERE SOLDIERS-
http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1085111/posts
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More...
"WE WERE SOLDIERS" / Battle of IA DRANG-1965 Photos
http://www.lzxray.com/guyer_collection.htm
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Very cool...
Regards,
TS
God Bless Rick Rescorla
Garry Owen
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...And now the FoX News Channel
has just announced this fine Sunday morning that...
...MEL's next -PASSION- will be...
...The Miracle of -FATIMA-
Portugal's Carmelite nun Sister Lucia, the last of the three children to see the Blessed Virgin at FATIMA in 1917, passed on to Heaven February 12, 2005 at age 97.
MEL visited her before she died when he gave her a private showing of his -The PASSION of the Christ-
See:
Fatima Dies Visionary at 97
http://www.Newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/2/13/193343.shtml
Praise GOD that...
LOVE is the Only Reality and that...
GOD is LOVE..?
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