Men of Harlech

24 years ago tomorrow ...

Tomorrow will be the 24th anniversary of 9/11.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to make that the focus here, but after briefly mentioning the story of Rick Rescorla on that day in this week's Big Optimism newsletter, I haven't stopped thinking about it.

Besides, as the years go by, fewer people probably remember.

So, we'll start in Cornwall, England, where in 1939, Cyril Richard Rescorla (everyone called him Rick) was born in the seaside town of Hayle.

As a boy, he watched American soldiers train for the Normandy invasion on the beaches nearby. He dreamed of being a soldier himself, and he dreamed of America.

By his late teens, he was in the British Army, serving in Cyprus and Rhodesia. Soon he moved to the United States, joined the U.S. Army, and deployed to Vietnam with the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry.

That put him in the middle of the Battle of Ia Drang in 1965, the first major clash of the war. He’s the soldier pictured on the cover of the 1992 book, We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young. He came home with the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, and the Purple Heart.

After the Army, he pivoted to education and corporate security. By the 1980s, he was head of security for Dean Witter, later Morgan Stanley, at the World Trade Center.

Rescorla distrusted the towers from the start. Too tall, too obvious a target. After the 1993 truck bombing in the North Tower, he doubled down. He designed detailed evacuation plans and forced Morgan Stanley employees—thousands of them—to practice walking down flight after flight of stairs.

They complained. He kept pushing.

At the same time, he found personal happiness. In the 1990s he met Susan Greer, wooed her with songs and poems, and married her in 1999.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, he was in his office on the 44th floor of the South Tower.

At 8:46 a.m., the first plane hit the North Tower. Port Authority officials told people in the South Tower to stay put. Rescorla ignored them. He grabbed his bullhorn and ordered everyone to evacuate.

The drills paid off. Thousands moved calmly into the stairwells. Rescorla sang to steady them—just as he had done in Vietnam: “God Bless America,” “Men of Harlech.”

At 9:03 a.m., the second plane hit the South Tower. By then, most of his people were already on their way out.

Still, he kept going back up. His wife Susan called. She begged him to leave.

“Stop crying,” he told her. “I have to get my people out. If something happens to me, I want you to know you’ve made my life.”

At 9:59 a.m., the South Tower collapsed. Rescorla was still inside. His body was never found.

Out of about 2,700 Morgan Stanley employees in the towers that morning, only six were killed. Rescorla was one of them. His decision to defy official orders and evacuate almost certainly saved thousands of lives.

If you think about the most effective heroes of that day, you probably have two examples: the passengers on Flight 93, who fought back and crashed their hijacked jet, and Rick Rescorla, who sang people down the stairs until they were safe.

That day, 2,996 people died. If not for him, it might have been almost twice that.

---

7 other things worth knowing

• President Donald Trump refused to comment Tuesday on the letter he allegedly signed for disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's 50th "birthday book" calling it a "dead issue." The full "birthday book" is online now; The text and doodle of a naked woman that Trump allegedly authored are on page 165; see also page 156. (NBC News, Document Cloud)

• The U.S. government could wind up having to refund between $750 billion to a whopping $1 trillion if the Supreme Court agrees with lower courts that President Trump's tariffs on other countries are illegal, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a sworn declaration. His testimony was part of a request by the Trump administration for the Supreme Court to quickly rule the tariffs are legal, and not wait until next summer, which is the normal time frame for a decision. (CNBC)

• A South African group called "Amerikaners" says it’s helping the Trump administration identify applicants for immigration as refugees to the U.S. South Africa's government strongly opposes the program, saying the white minority it targets are the most economically privileged group in the country and do not meet the definition of refugees. The U.S. has discussed bringing 30,000 white South Africans to the U.S. in the next year; as of early August, less than 100 had arrived. (Reuters)

• Israel launched a strike targeting Hamas’ leadership in Qatar on Tuesday as they considered a U.S. proposal for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. Israel said it notified the U.S. of its plans ahead of time, but Qatar is a U.S. ally, and the strike risks upending talks aimed at winding down the war and freeing hostages. (AP)

• What’s it worth to Rupert Murdoch to ensure that the conservative media empire he built stays that way for at least another generation? Try $3.3 billion, which is what his three more politically liberal children, James, Elisabeth and Prudence, will split, in a classic case of take the money and run. By giving up a fight that might have forced Murdoch’s Fox News Channel and News Corp. in a less conservative direction, his grown kids have become the latest privileged heirs to indicate they don’t relish boardroom brawls quite as much as the generation that put those silver spoons in their mouths. (The Wrap)

• For months, Google has maintained that the web is “thriving,” AI isn’t tanking traffic, and its search engine is sending people to a wider variety of websites than ever. But in a court filing from last week, Google admitted that "the open web is already in rapid decline." Google submitted the filing ahead of another trial that will determine how it will address its monopoly in the advertising technology business. (The Verge)

• The southern Dutch city of Tilburg saw more color than usual recently, as thousands of redheads from all over the world gathered in the Netherlands for a once-a-year festival to celebrate their flaming locks. The 2025 edition of the Redhead Days festival included music, food trucks and workshops tailored to particular needs of redheads, from makeup explainers to skin cancer prevention. Daniel Hank traveled six hours from Germany to join the festivities: "It’s really easy to recognize me because there are not that many people with a red beard, there are not many guys with long red hair." (Yahoo News)

---

Thanks for reading. Photo by Jesse Mills on Unsplash. See you in the comments.