"I've Never Been Happier" The Mudville Gazette has a special on Rick Rescorla, the man who fought in, among other things, the...
"I've Never Been Happier"
The Mudville
Gazette has a special on Rick Rescorla, the man who fought in, among other
things, the battle made into the movie We Were Soldiers Once, And Young.
But being in a particular place at certain time was nothing so special as being
a particular kind of man in every place and time.
The survivors of the 7th Cavalry still tell awestruck stories about
Rescorla. Like the time he stumbled into a hooch full of enemy soldiers on a
reconnaissance patrol in Bon Song. "Oh, pardon me," he said, before
firing a few rounds and racing away. "Oh, comma, pardon me," repeats
Dennis Deal, who followed Rescorla that day in April 1966. "Like he had
walked into a ladies' tea party!" ...
After fighting in Vietnam, he returned to the United States and used his
military benefits to study creative writing at the University of Oklahoma.
Literary minded, even before college he had read all fifty-one volumes of the
Harvard Classics and could recite Shakespeare and quote Churchill. He had
started writing a novel about a mobile-air-cavalry unit, and had several
stories published in Western-themed magazines. He eventually earned a
bachelor's, a master's in literature, and a law degree.
Later he took jobs in corporate security and become vice-president for
security at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter -- the largest tenant in the World Trade
Center. And he was Rick Rescorla on September 11, 2001 too. After the plane hit,
he made the decision to evacuate everyone he could from the tower despite a
request from the Port Authority to hold in place, but Rescorla knew better.
"What'd you say?" Hill (a colleague he had called by phone to
help him on that day) asked.
"I said, 'Piss off, you son of a bitch,' " Rescorla replied.
"Everything above where that plane hit is going to collapse, and it's
going to take the whole building with it. I'm getting my people the fuck out
of here." Then he said, "I got to go. Get your shit in one basket
and get ready to come up."
When the second plane slammed into the South Tower, Rescorla knew he had been
right. It had been no accident. Rescorla made one final call to his wife
and spoke words which to many will seem curious yet from a certain point of view
were perfectly natural.
"Stop crying," he told her. "I have to get these people out
safely. If something should happen to me, I want you to know I've never been
happier. You made my life."
There was a time when stories like this were special; they are special still
but not quite so unique. Too many men all over the world -- in Iraq and
Afghanistan, on the Horn of Africa or in Southeast Asia -- have said words to
keep them company.
Hill reached Susan (Rescorla's wife), who had just got off the phone with
Sullivan. "Take it easy," he said, as she continued to sob.
"He's been through tight spots before, a million times." Suddenly
Susan screamed. Hill turned to look at his own television and saw the south
tower collapse. He thought of the words Rescorla had so often used to comfort
dying soldiers. "Susan, he'll be O.K.," he said gently. "Take
deep breaths. Take it easy. If anyone will survive, Rick will survive."
When Hill hung up, he turned to his wife. Her face was ashen.
"Shit," he said. "Rescorla is dead."
But he was wrong. Only we the living can still betray; Rick will survive as
Rescorla until the end of time; undiminished and forever who he was.
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