If it wasn’t for Rick Rescorla, 9/11 death toll in NYC could have been double

There will be a lot of thoughtful posts in the blogosphere about the eighth anniversary of September 11. Here, I want to tell just one story of a man who we got to know thanks to Matt Burden and his Someone You Should Know series at Blackfive. Here is Matt’s tribute to Rick Rescorla,

Rick was a British (Cypress and Rhodesia) and American (Viet Nam) war hero. He retired as a Colonel in 1990.

Decades later, after 9/11, I had no idea that Rescorla had everything to do with denying Al Qaeda a huge victory. I wasn’t surprised that Rick had saved 2,700 people that day, and then paid the price with his life when he went back into the tower for stragglers. He knew, KNEW, it was coming down. And he went anyway…

Tenacious, strong, and leading all the way to the end.

Here is the Someone You Should Know Matt did in memory of Rick Rescorla on September 11, 2006,

Here is Greyhawk’s tribute at Mudville Gazette.