One could sense - but not know - there were years of war ahead, and battles with casualty lists that would dwarf those produced in its opening months. Few reporters would cover it from start to finish as Carleton would. Other men his age - just slightly too old to join the army and effectively fight in it - might have had the calling, but most would lack the mental and physical fortitude to endure the repeated scenes of battle and aftermath they were free to walk away from whenever they wanted. Yet not only would Carleton witness much of it first hand, he would seek out survivors for decades beyond to document their stories. Years later, when the echoes of shots and screams had faded everywhere but in the memories of those who'd heard them, he would interview one who'd been but a private in this day's fight - and who lived to see action in many others to come.

"I have been in over 80 battles," the older veteran would assure him, "but I never knew such absolutely vicious firing as that at Ball's Bluff. The air was just chock full of bullets. It seemed like hell let loose and there we stood, just simply targets for the rebel riflemen. The nearest approach that we ever had to that firing was at Gettysburg, but even that was nothing so vicious as this."

But those who'd fought it had nothing yet to compare it to when Coffin, who had accompanied the army on its ill-fated march to Manassas, arrived on the scene of his second battle and second Union defeat. What exactly had happened here would take time to sort out, but it seemed likely to prove worse than the first. The young men whose names filled the lists of missing, wounded, and dead had not yet had opportunity to make their own mark on the world, but those names were distinguished in their own right. They'd been inherited from ancestors who'd gained prominence among the first pilgrims to these shores, or before, during, and after the American Revolution, and were maintained by eminent men of the current day - Coffin could see the surgeons attending some of their sons even now. There was one enduring a limb amputation, while over here one refused all treatment - knowing he was a goner and believing the effort would simply make his final hours more agonizing than he already expected them to be. Over there was another with his intestines dangling from an open wound... no use pretending anything could be done for him.

As for the older men who'd led those youngsters, one, at least, was part of the reason he made the trip out from Washington to see things for himself. Coffin had been alerted to developments earlier that day, upon seeing a man emerge from a telegraph office "with bowed head, and tears rolling down his furrowed cheeks, his face pale and wan, his heart heaving with emotion." This man had sought news of the ongoing battle, and in the casualty list he'd gotten the worst. So shaken was he by the name of a friend that he almost fell as he stepped out into the street - a character performing an anguished public drama, a sort of tragic street theater that, with hundreds of thousands of different featured players, became painfully familiar to Americans as it was repeated in towns and cities North and South, large and small throughout the long bloody years of the war.

But those were years still to come. Now the war was something new - and if it wasn't the first battle Ball's Bluff was one of the first. And this man - who walked home to the White House "with both hands pressed upon his heart" as if to keep it from breaking - was Abraham Lincoln, the President of the United States. The name that so upset him was that of Colonel Edward D. Baker, a sitting US Senator (and the only one ever killed in combat) who a few weeks earlier had "expressed a conviction that he would soon be shot in battle" - a "gloomy foreboding" that his friend the President (though he had believed it likely) tried to convince him to dismiss. This night Lincoln, himself one of those who'd grown increasingly restless for action in the previous weeks, would pace the floor in grief, unable to sleep - later he would describe Baker's death as the keenest blow he suffered through the war. So it is with the first such, the sharpest - the one death that defines tragedy, with each of the thousands of individual tragedies to come simply yet one more.

But Baker...

"My friends," the President-elect had said to the citizens of Springfield, Illinois who'd come to the train station to see him off to Washington just a few months before (though by now it would have seemed an eternity) - "no one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting..."

"To this place and the kindness of these people, I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me, and remain with you, and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell."

Those many friends were distant memories now, but here in Washington was Baker - in 1861 a U.S. Senator, and a friend at a time and place where such a friendship was inestimably valuable to the man on whose shoulders rested no less a burden than the future of the Republic. Ned, they had called him back home in Springfield - where Abe Lincoln had known Ned Baker for a quarter century. He'd named his second son (tragically, the one who had died in childhood there) Edward Baker Lincoln, and at the end of that train trip when he delivered his first inaugural address it was Baker who introduced him to the masses gathered to listen.

Years later William Herndon, Lincoln's Springfield law office partner, would share a story of the two men in their younger days, from the time of the 1840 election campaign:

Baker was a brilliant and effective speaker, and quite as full too of courage as invective. He was addressing a crowd in the court room, which was immediately underneath Stuart and Lincoln's office. Just above the platform on which the speaker stood was a trap door in the floor, which opened into Lincoln's office. Lincoln at the time, as was often his habit, was lying on the floor looking down through the door at the speaker. I was in the body of the crowd. Baker was hot-headed and impulsive, but brave as a lion. Growing warm in his arraignment of the Democratic party, he charged that "wherever there was a land office there was a Democratic newspaper to defend its corruptions." This angered the brother of the editor of our town paper, who was present, and who cried out, "Pull him down," at the same time advancing from the crowd as if to perform the task himself. Baker, his face pale with excitement, squared himself for resistance. A shuffling of feet, a forward movement of the crowd, and great confusion followed.

Just then a long pair of legs were seen dangling from the aperture above, and instantly the figure of Lincoln dropped on the platform. Motioning with his hands for silence and not succeeding, he seized a stone water-pitcher standing near by, threatening to break it over the head of the first man who laid hands on Baker. "Hold on, gentlemen," he shouted, "this is the land of free speech. Mr. Baker has a right to speak and ought to be heard. I am here to protect him, and no man shall take him from this stand if I can prevent it." His interference had the desired effect. Quiet was soon restored, and the valiant Baker was allowed to proceed.

The two friends had their differences over the years. At one point they would compete for their party's nomination for office, and later, as the US waged war with Mexico, Lincoln opposed it from his seat in the US House of Representatives while Baker answered the call of the drum and joined those marching on the Halls of Montezuma. When it was over the future president's political career appeared to be a casualty of that war, but their friendship survived.

Like that friendship, Baker's competitive instinct had not cooled over the intervening years. When the Civil War broke out he raised a regiment of volunteers (mostly in Pennsylvania; although that state had met its recruiting goal the unit was allowed to fill a troop quota for far-off California, and fought its earliest battles as "the California Brigade") and he declined a higher commission in order to keep his place as its commander, and lead men into battle. Still, as the battles would be fought nearby, he kept his seat in the Senate, where he appeared in uniform that summer between the disaster at Bull Run and the debacle at Ball's Bluff.

Breckinridge

There he'd listened to Democrat John C. Breckinridge, Vice President under Buchanan, one of three men who ran against Lincoln in the previous year's elections and now US Senator from Kentucky (birthplace of Lincoln and Confederate President Jefferson Davis) "bitterly denouncing the war and opposing its prosecution" - predicting that waging war would only result in more regions separating from the already diminished Union. Baker rose in response, demanding clarification of the meaning of those words: "Are they not words of brilliant, polished treason*?" What if a Senator of Rome had risen "in that distinguished council of old," he wondered, "and declared that the cause of advancing Hannibal was just, and that Carthage ought to be dealt with in terms of peace?"

"Does not the Senator from Kentucky know," Baker asked with obvious contempt, "that every word he has uttered will be an inspiration to every Confederate ear?"

Ever a good judge of character, on the day of the battle the President had good reason for concern. "Baker is in the fight," Lincoln had said earlier in the day, "and I am afraid his impetuous daring will endanger his life."

He was right. And he couldn't save him this time. Though the place where Ned had died was close by there was no trap door from which Abe could drop and rescue his friend - his body would be returning to Washington soon.

*****

*****

Whispered news of some sort of disaster nearby passed through Washington earlier that day; Charles Carleton Coffin heard the rumors, and "Riding at once with a fellow-correspondent, Mr. H. M. Smith of the Chicago Tribune, to General McClellan's head-quarters, and entering the anteroom, we found President Lincoln there..."

I had met him on several occasions, and he was well acquainted with my friend. He greeted us cordially, but sat down quickly, rested his head upon his hand, and seemed to be unusually agitated. His eyes were sunken, his countenance haggard, his whole demeanor that of one who was in trouble.

"Will you please step in here, Mr. President," said an orderly from an adjoining room, from whence came the click of the telegraph. He soon came out, with his hands clasped upon his breast, his head bowed, his body bent as if he were carrying a great burden. He took no notice of any one, but with downcast eyes and faltering steps passed into the street and towards the Executive mansion.

"He stumbled upon the outer steps, but did not fall," Coffin recalled later. "He passed down the street towards the White House, carrying not only the burden of the nation upon his heart, but a heavy load of private grief, which with swiftness of a lightning flash had been hurled upon him."

At McClellan's headquarters the two journalists would hear only sketchy details, the limits of early reports and the fog of war. "A disaster..." they were told. And "we have lost a large number of men, possibly fifteen hundred," and "Colonel Baker is killed." They determined to make the brief journey to the scene of the battle by horseback, and arrived there at sunset - but they'd already had their first confirmation of something gone horribly wrong while still on the way. Riding along the banks of the Potomac "I saw the bodies floating in the stream of those that were killed at Ball's Bluff, or who were drowned while attempting to gain the Maryland shore."

Major Paul Revere, 20th Massachusetts Infantry

In fact Major Paul Revere was named for his grandfather, so when his capture was reported Americans everywhere would recognize the name that so recently personified their call to arms - as they would those of so many of the other recent Harvard graduates (like young Wendall Holmes - '61, now lying on the floor wounded but perhaps soon to be numbered among the dead) who dominated the junior officer corps of the 20th Massachusetts Infantry, Volunteer. Coffin couldn't see the missing troops - but anywhere he cared to look he'd have ample evidence that the term "blue blood" was inaccurate; pools of the stuff were drying everywhere, and quite red after all.

Back in Washington Lincoln's grief kept him up, pacing the floor. As if the loss of Baker wasn't enough, he knew who those "perhaps 1,500" other men were, too. Elements of the 20th and 15th Massachusetts had crossed that day, along with companies from the 42nd New York - a unit of volunteers raised by Tammany Hall, the political machine through which Democrats controlled New York City. It was no mistake, no mere clerical happenstance that had placed these units with Senator Baker's "California" at a spot removed from the greater concentration of opposing forces nearer Washington. They were positioned down the line, with the river separating them from the enemy. It was the perfect ground, strategically important, but easier to defend - though no enemy could possibly be foolish enough to attempt a crossing for a battle there.

And no enemy had. No - it was Baker who'd gone to the Virginia side, on a mission that proved every bit as suicidal as anyone would have expected before it was launched. What had happened? Lincoln wondered - and he was wise enough to know that in this modern age of high-speed communication that same question would be asked throughout the entire nation tomorrow. As for answers, well, many would have those, too - each assured his was best, and the telegraph could disseminate them just as fast as it did the question. As to whether any might be right answers... as marvelous an invention as it was it could do nothing to facilitate discovery of that.

(Part three is here.)

Bibliography:

Charles Carleton Coffin, The Boys of '61 (1885) and Stories of our Soldiers: War Reminiscences (1893)

William Henry Herndon and Jesse William Weik, Herndon's Lincoln; the True Story of a Great Life (1889)

Frank Hamilton Taylor, Philadelphia in the Civil War 1861-1865 (1913) (Includes a brief history of the California Brigade)

Michael Burlingame, Lincoln's Journalist: John Hay's Anonymous Writings for the Press, 1860 - 1864 (1998) and Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2006) (Unedited manuscript of chapter 24 here.)

Note:

* Breckinridge - whose home state of Kentucky remained in the Union - was expelled from the Senate for treason by resolution on December 4, 1861. By then he'd joined the Confederate Army; he would fight for the South throughout the war.

The man standing beside me as we listen to these words being spoken just a few feet away from us is scheduled to retire, his household goods already picked up and shipped, his new life all but begun. Now all of that is uncertain, but in the end his 26 years of service will be sufficient, by virtue of that shipment of household goods he will be allowed to retire while others not so far along in the process will have to wait a few extra months for more settled times.

Still, I think, it was a tough decision for him. But an honor for me as a few weeks later I will get to narrate the ceremony, an emotional conclusion to a distinguished career spanning the better part of three decades. His wife and daughter in the crowd with a room full of other guests, but one noticeable absence: his son will miss this great moment in his father's life, as he is among the first to get his boots in the sand with our new allies, the "Northern Alliance" in Afghanistan.

Family tradition is a powerful thing.

But on September 11, 2001 that future was absolutely uncertain. Then I gazed out through a third floor window in time to see a motorcade drive back towards the flightline. Vehicles bristling with mounted machine guns.

And looking down from that window I can't get this image out of my head: those who chose to jump or who fell from the flaming towers. Turning and twisting in the grip of gravity for reason they would never know...

Here then, is America on the cusp of the millennia; star-spangled glory and the hope for the free world. Battered and bleeding, cut and scarred, a nation still rising from a barbarous past and now forced to deal imperfectly but as best and completely as we can with barbarism many thought long gone from the world. The time for denial ended as aircraft ripped the sky above New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania...

We are right and wrong, we are the best and the brightest and the worst of the world today. We are not half measures. We are frequently extreme, and here voices of temperance are often shouted down.

We are imperfect. We are not to be underestimated.

We are the last dangerous hope for the future of mankind.

The motorcade reaches the runway. There, wingtip to wingtip, the B52 fleet sits, fueled and loaded for real, for an exercise now cancelled. Think about it. The first thing he saw when he got there and the last when he left, firepower the likes of which few can imagine, and his finger on the "trigger". The images of the fallen towers, a smoking hole in the Pentagon, and a crater in Pennsylvania fresh in everyone's mind...

And later that night I would get home and hug the wife and kids and be thankful that I could.

And beg forgiveness from my God for that which I might have to do.

FOX

CNN

ABC News

CBS News

NBC News

From the World Trade Center, Rescorla again called Hill. He said he was taking some of his security men and making a final sweep, to make sure no one was left behind, injured, or lost. Then he would evacuate himself. "Call Susan and calm her down," he said. "She's panicking."

Hill reached Susan, 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."

Rick did not make it out. Neither did two of his security officers who were at his side. But only three other Morgan Stanley employees died when their building was obliterated.

However, over 2600 employees walked out of the south tower that morning and in to the rest of their lives...

(More.)

ABC News

FOX

Damn damn damn.

Strangely enough I have a dentist appointment, made weeks before. On a military installation you do not miss a dentist appointment. And there's a distinct and new possibility that I may be away from home for a while, with no immediate access to professional modern dentistry. So with nothing else hot to do I head for the dental clinic.

And there's a TV in the waiting room. And discussion of who is doing this. And very professional attitudes to the people going about their business. Until the towers fall. And then the world changes. And everything ratchets up about ten notches.

I reschedule my appointment. Looking at the date on the new appointment slip I wonder if I'll actually be here in two weeks.

CBS News

BBC

Images are beamed into the ops center; the towers are smoking like chimneys over the furnaces of Hell. Damaged but not yet fallen. No one knows and everyone suspects what's going on. Osama Bin Laden is not unknown to us; he drew first blood long before this day.

"It's the UN Summit thing" Someone says, "we refused to condemn Israel as a racist state and this is the result."

"That may be a final kicker, but there's definitely more motive behind this attack."

"Well sure, it goes back to the founding of Israel..."

"No, it goes back to the days of the Bible..."

"Well, yea, but I mean as far as modern times..."

"The Palestinians?"

"Hey don't forget Oklahoma. We don't know yet who did this one..."

I need a break from this scene and there are a few things I need to get done, so it's down the hall to the office. When I get there the guy I share the office with is hanging up the phone; he was talking to a buddy at the Pentagon.

"Learn anything?" I ask him.

"He hung up...he said 'I've gotta go, the whole building just shook'... and he hung up."

Damn.

Down the hall again to the Ops Center. News reports are conflicted now, rumors are flying, something about a bombing at State Department headquarters... the "fog of war" is thick on this one. No surprise there.

But ten minutes later the first "unconfirmed reports" from the Pentagon are broadcast.

Damn damn damn.

ABC News

FOX

CBS News

BBC

It was Rick. She burst into tears and couldn't talk.

"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."

Susan cried even harder, gasping for breath. She felt a stab of fear, because the words sounded like those of someone who wasn't coming back. "No!" she cried, but then he said he had to go. Cell-phone use was being curtailed so as not to interfere with emergency communications.
<...>
The tower went dark. Fire raged. Windows shattered. Rescorla headed upstairs before moving down; he helped evacuate several people above the 50th Floor. Stephan Newhouse, chairman of Morgan Stanley International, said at a memorial service in Hayle that Rescorla was spotted as high as the 72nd floor, then worked his way down, clearing floors as he went. He was telling people to stay calm, pace themselves, get off their cell phones, keep moving. At one point, he was so exhausted he had to sit for a few minutes, although he continued barking orders through his bullhorn. Morgan Stanley officials said he called headquarters shortly before the tower collapsed to say he was going back up to search for stragglers.

John Olson, a Morgan Stanley regional director, saw Rescorla reassuring colleagues in the 10th-floor stairwell. "Rick, you've got to get out, too," Olson told him. "As soon as I make sure everyone else is out," Rescorla replied.

Morgan Stanley officials say Rescorla also told employees that "today is a day to be proud to be American" and that "tomorrow, the whole world will be talking about you." They say he also sang "God Bless America" and Cornish folk tunes in the stairwells... Morgan Stanley managing director Bob Sloss was the only employee who didn't evacuate the 66th floor after the first plane hit, pausing to call his family and several underlings, even taking a call from a Bloomberg News reporter. Then the second plane hit, and his office walls cracked, and he felt the tower wagging like a dog's tail. He clambered down to the 10th floor, and there was Rescorla, sweating through his suit in the heat, telling people they were almost out, making no move to leave himself.

(More.)

The commander leaves as the room is called to attention, the day shift quietly exits the briefing room and crosses the hall to the operations center. There on the wall another giant screen has been given over to live news coverage, and indeed one of the towers has been transformed into what looks like the world's largest candle.

At numerous work stations around the room shift change is now ongoing, tired midshift workers start the trudge home. "Looks like you might not be sleeping much today." I remark to a friend passing by on his way to the door.

"Huh?" He says. I point to the screen. "Oh that. The TV guys say it was probably an accident."

I don't think so. What are the odds? This guy is doing a great job of convincing himself that he'll be able to sleep. I would be hoping for sleep too. At the end of a mid shift it's all you can think about. If you can think.

He leaves. The day crew is on duty and focused on the task at hand. Professional. Time for me to get to work too. I've got an office down the hall and I'm about to head for the door when the images of the second plane hitting the second tower are burned forever into my memory.

The commander is at my shoulder now. The ops floor is getting crowded. "That's a hell of a degree of realism for an exercise," Someone quips.

And we don't know it yet but the President of the United States is inbound.

"...It's a terrible accident." Hill hurried downstairs, and then the phone rang. It was Rescorla, calling from his cell phone.

"Are you watching TV?" he asked. "What do you think?"

"Hard to tell. It could have been an accident, but I can't see a commercial airliner getting that far off."

"I'm evacuating right now," Rescorla said.

Hill could hear Rescorla issuing orders through the bullhorn. He was calm and collected, never raising his voice. Then Hill heard him break into song:

Men of Cornwall stop your dreaming;
Can't you see their spearpoints gleaming?
See their warriors' pennants streaming
To this battlefield.
Men of Cornwall stand ye steady;
It cannot be ever said ye
for the battle were not ready;
Stand and never yield!

Rescorla came back on the phone. "Pack a bag and get up here," he said. "You can be my consultant again." He added that the Port Authority was telling him not to evacuate and to order people to stay at their desks.

"What'd you say?" Hill 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."

(More.)

But the generators kept running, planes didn't fall out of the sky, banks didn't fail, the stock markets didn't crash and the world kept going. The future was safe for our children.

Speaking of children, that's my youngest daughter on the right, having fun playing dress up with her best friend. Clearly they were happy, but that was also the year we (being an active duty military family) had to move away - something we'd done many times before and since.

And then they were very sad. This was their last day together:

Her friend wasn't from a military family, so she stayed right where she was. But we moved on to Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, where shortly thereafter George Bush paid a surprise visit on September 11, 2001.

Part two: What's the Threatcon, Charlie?

Interesting times, those. We had been conducting an exercise there at the home of a big chunk of one third of America's triad, and every few hours for a few days prior to 9/11 we'd been getting exercise email messages on the Threatcon (or maybe it was Force Protection Con - we changed from the former to the latter around that time). "Exercise Threatcon Bravo", one would announce - indicating that for purposes of the exercise there was an elevated threat, and we would respond accordingly. "Exercise Threatcon Charlie", the next would declare - indicating increased threat, so we'd increase our security measures. Always at the bottom of each message was the real-world Threatcon, which was normal: business as usual. A human was sending out those messages, but it was very impressive, and very high-tech. On one level it was make-believe, but on another it was deadly serious business - a simulation, but very important practice, practice, practice, that ensured we were ready for anything.

That Tuesday morning, like most Americans, I watched planes fly into the World Trade Center on TV. Shortly afterward, the guy I shared an office with picked up the phone and called the Pentagon, but hung up before saying much, with a very concerned look on his face.

"What'd he say?" I asked. "He said, 'I've gotta get off the phone - the whole building just shook!' - and then he hung up," he replied.

Moments later we got another email update on the exercise Threatcon. The exercise was winding down as scheduled, so it read "Exercise Threatcon Alpha," indicating a reduced threat in the script for the war game at that point. The message, like all the many previous messages throughout the exercise, detailed the steps to be taken in response to the "pretend" threat level; in this case, not much. But there at the bottom was the REAL WORLD again - Actual Threatcon: Charlie.

The clock had struck 19100 once again.

Fortunately we hadn't rushed right out and taken down the plastic traffic cones and pink ribbons simulating actual barricades around our building keeping people from parking too close and thus protecting us from Tim McVeigh-style truck bombers - because later we got an email from someone a bit higher up in the food chain. We would disregard any and all such Threatcon messages from then on unless from him or someone higher. All protective measures would remain in place, but oh by the way, ENDEX.

We were going to have to get the hang of this "real world" stuff PDQ.

While all that was being sorted out, the President of the United States came, talked to some folks about some stuff, addressed the people of the United States via television ("The resolve of our great nation is being tested,' he concluded. "But make no mistake: We will show the world that we will pass this test. God bless."), and went.

On the walk back to Air Force One, a man with some authority over America's Strategic Bomber Fleet, in the true spirit of Curt LeMay, assured the Commander in Chief of America's Armed Forces in Time of War that he just needed to say the word - they were ready to go. He wasn't kidding - as part of that exercise they were, and they were fully capable of transforming a very large piece of real estate from something seemingly uninhabitable into something actually uninhabitable in a matter of hours. Years later, via the internet, I could find an actual photo of that moment in history, and recognize the spot where it was taken, and remember what they were talking about and pointing at...

Fortunately that rapid response wasn't executed. Within weeks the USA was at war in Afghanistan, but less emphatic methods were used... but on September 11th I went home wondering - like many Americans, I'm sure - what the kids had heard in school that day.

And what, exactly, I should tell them.

Part three: the children

The kids! My apologies - I digressed. This is a tale of children, for children. So back to the happy photo:

See, in the new millennium, even when friends moved away they could stay in touch via the internet. And these two girls did. Even when we moved to Germany, they could communicate, share their stories of boyfriends, and dances, and Middle School... and mine could confide any fears she might have about her Daddy's two trips to Iraq, and so on and so on. And to this day they still do.

In fact, just the other day my daughter told me her friend was very sad again.

"What's wrong?" I asked, well prepared to offer sound fatherly advice.

"Her husband is going to Afghanistan." She replied.

She'd married a Marine, you see. They aren't kids anymore, after all.

But "my", I thought to myself, "they sure do grow up fast. And what a very high-speed decade it's been."

2010-01-01 14:49:43

Let's begin with song.

Men of Harlech, stop your dreaming.
Can't you see their spear points gleaming?
See their warrior's pendants streaming
To this battlefield.

Men of Harlech, stand ye steady.
It cannot be ever said ye
For the battle were not ready.
Stand and never yield.

Through the hills surrounding
Let this war cry sounding
Summon all to Cambria's call,
The mighty force surrounding.

Men of Harlech, on to glory!
This shall ever be your story.
Keep these fighting words before ye:
Cambria (Welshmen never) will not yield.

- Men of Harlech (sung by Rick Rescorla as Men of Cornwall)
Several versions exist

Have you seen the movie We were Soldiers?

A good one, in my opinion. Given just a couple hours to tell a tale I think all in all the folks involved did a commendable job.

Perhaps it's hard to go wrong, given the source material. We Were Soldiers Once, And Young is an account of the battle at Ia Drang Valley, fought in the still early phases of the war in Viet Nam. The book was written by Hal Moore, who was then a Lt Col and commander of the American troops in the valley, and Joe Galloway, a reporter who was at the battle. Their collaboration is a truly human account of men at war- including the enemy viewpoint, as Galloway and Moore's efforts at capturing the battle on paper were thorough enough to include interviews with survivors from the other side.

Take a look at the cover. The prominent figure is Rick Rescorla, described thusly on the LZ Xray web page:

This is not a posed shot; this is a man moving forward into combat. Eyes forward. Ready.

On that day,

The PAVN Commander knows that he had severely weakened and damaged the defenders in the Charlie Co sector the previous morning. What he does not know is that a fresh company - B Co 2nd Bn 7th Cav, had taken over the position after that engagement. That company, unmolested the previous afternoon, had cut fields of fire, dug new foxholes, fired in artillery concentrations, carefully emplaced it's machine guns and piled up ammunition(1).

Rescorla directed his men to dig foxholes and establish a defense perimeter. Exploring the hilly terrain beyond the perimeter, he came under enemy fire. After nightfall, he and his men endured waves of assault. To keep morale up, Rescorla led the men in military cheers and Cornish songs throughout the night(2).

Rescorla knew war. His men did not, yet. To steady them, to break their concentration away from the fear that may grip a man when he realizes there are hundreds of men very close by who want to kill him, Rescorla sang. Mostly he sang dirty songs that would make a sailor blush. Interspersed with the lyrics was the voice of command: "Fix bayonets - on liiiiine? Reaaaa-dy - forward." It was a voice straight from Waterloo, from the Somme, implacable, impeccable, impossible to disobey. His men forgot their fear, concentrated on his orders and marched forward as he led them straight into the pages of history.(3)

The PAVN assaults four separate times beginning at 4:22 AM. The last is at 6:27 AM. They are stopped cold, losing over 200 dead. B Co has 6 wounded. At 9:55 AM, a sweep outward is made which results in more enemy dead and the position secured(1).

The next morning, Rescorla took a patrol through the battlefield, searching for American dead and wounded. As he looked over a giant anthill, he encountered an enemy machine-gun nest. The startled North Vietnamese fired on him, and Rescorla hurled a grenade into the nest. There were no survivors(2).

Rescorla and Bravo company were evacuated by helicopter. The rest of the battalion marched to a nearby landing zone. On the way, they were ambushed, and Bravo company was again called in for relief. Only two helicopters made it through enemy fire. As the one carrying Rescorla descended, the pilot was wounded, and he started to lift up. Rescorla and his men jumped the remaining ten feet, bullets flying at them, and made it into the beleaguered camp. As Lieutenant Larry Gwin later recalled the scene, "I saw Rick Rescorla come swaggering into our lines with a smile on his face, an M-79 on his shoulder, his M-16 in one hand, saying, 'Good, good, good! I hope they hit us with everything they got tonight - we'll wipe them up.' His spirit was catching. The enemy must have thought an entire battalion was coming to help us, because of all our screaming and yelling."(2)

"My God, it was like Little Big Horn," recalls Pat Payne, a reconnaissance platoon leader. "We were all cowering in the bottom of our foxholes, expecting to get overrun. Rescorla gave us courage to face the coming dawn. He looked me in the eye and said, 'When the sun comes up, we're gonna kick some ass.' "

Sure enough, the battalion fought its way out of Albany. Rescorla left the field with a morale-boosting souvenir: a battered French Army bugle that the North Vietnamese had once claimed as a trophy of war. It became a talisman for his entire division.(4)

Lt Rescorla survived that engagement and many others.

He had grown up in a village on England's southwest coast and left at age sixteen to join the British military. He'd fought in Cyprus and Rhodesia. He then came to America, he said, so that he could enlist in the Army and go to Vietnam. He welcomed the opportunity to join the American cause in Southeast Asia. He worked his way up through the ranks to Sergeant before being commissioned.

The epitome of the young warrior, he was the sort that England seems to have bred in abundance for centuries: the type of young man who in times past went forth from Britain and created an empire upon which the sun never set. England happened to be fresh out of wars in the 1960s, so Rescorla became an American and fought in ours.(3)

More stories from Viet Nam:

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!"

Or the time a deranged private pulled a .45-caliber pistol on an officer while Rescorla was nearby, sharpening his bowie knife. "Rick just walked right between them and said: Put. Down. The. Gun." recalls Bill Lund, who served with Rescorla in Vietnam. "And the guy did. Then Rick went back to his knife. He was flat out the bravest man any of us ever knew."(4)

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.

Rescorla then moved to South Carolina for a brief teaching career. He left for greener pastures; jobs in corporate security eventually led him to Dean Witter in 1985. He moved to New Jersey, commuted to Manhattan, and rose to become vice-president in charge of security at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.

And, oh by the way, was still in the Army, as a Reservist, having advanced to colonel before retiring in 1990.

Rescorla's office was on the forty-fourth floor of the south tower of the World Trade Center. The firm occupied twenty-two floors in the south tower, and several floors in a building nearby. In 1990 Rescorla and Dan Hill, an old Army friend, evaluated the security, identifying load bearing columns in the parking garage as a weak point. A security official for the Port Authority dismissed their concerns. On February 26, 1993, a truck bomb exploded in the basement.

Rescorla ensured that every one of his firm's employees was safely evacuated, and was the last man out of the building.

Rescorla met his wife while running barefoot. Still determined to be a writer he had been scripting a play set in Rhodesia, based on his experiences there. Few of the native Rhodesians had worn shoes, which was why, he explained to her, he had to feel what it was like to run barefoot.

Some insight into the man's character:

Rescorla may have told Susan that he was running barefoot as research for a play, but he had already been running barefoot in Africa, and then at Fort Dix, toughening his soles to the point where he could extinguish a fire with his bare feet. He told Hill that if he lost his boots in combat it wouldn't matter. This was something he'd absorbed from his years in Africa. "You should be able to strip a man naked and throw him out with nothing on him," he told Hill. By the end of the day, the man should be clothed and fed. By the end of the week, he should own a horse. And by the end of a year he should own a business and have money in the bank.(2)

Small wonder that the final chapter of the story goes like this:

In St. Augustine, Dan Hill was laying tile in his upstairs bathroom when his wife called, "Dan, get down here! An airplane just flew into the World Trade Center. It's a terrible accident." Hill hurried downstairs, and then the phone rang. It was Rescorla, calling from his cell phone.

"Are you watching TV?" he asked. "What do you think?"

"Hard to tell. It could have been an accident, but I can't see a commercial airliner getting that far off."

"I'm evacuating right now," Rescorla said.

Hill could hear Rescorla issuing orders through the bullhorn. He was calm and collected, never raising his voice. Then Hill heard him break into song:

Men of Cornwall stop your dreaming;
Can't you see their spearpoints gleaming?
See their warriors' pennants streaming
To this battlefield.
Men of Cornwall stand ye steady;
It cannot be ever said ye
for the battle were not ready;
Stand and never yield!

Rescorla came back on the phone. "Pack a bag and get up here," he said. "You can be my consultant again." He added that the Port Authority was telling him not to evacuate and to order people to stay at their desks.

"What'd you say?" Hill 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."

Hill turned back to the TV and, within minutes, saw the second plane execute a sharp left turn and plunge into the south tower. Susan saw it, too, and frantically phoned her husband's office. No one answered.

About fifteen minutes later, the phone rang. It was Rick. She burst into tears and couldn't talk.

"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."

Susan cried even harder, gasping for breath. She felt a stab of fear, because the words sounded like those of someone who wasn't coming back. "No!" she cried, but then he said he had to go. Cell-phone use was being curtailed so as not to interfere with emergency communications.

From the World Trade Center, Rescorla again called Hill. He said he was taking some of his security men and making a final sweep, to make sure no one was left behind, injured, or lost. Then he would evacuate himself. "Call Susan and calm her down," he said. "She's panicking."

Hill reached Susan, 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."(2)

The rest of Rick Rescorla's morning is shrouded in some mystery. The tower went dark. Fire raged. Windows shattered. Rescorla headed upstairs before moving down; he helped evacuate several people above the 50th Floor. Stephan Newhouse, chairman of Morgan Stanley International, said at a memorial service in Hayle that Rescorla was spotted as high as the 72nd floor, then worked his way down, clearing floors as he went. He was telling people to stay calm, pace themselves, get off their cell phones, keep moving. At one point, he was so exhausted he had to sit for a few minutes, although he continued barking orders through his bullhorn. Morgan Stanley officials said he called headquarters shortly before the tower collapsed to say he was going back up to search for stragglers.

John Olson, a Morgan Stanley regional director, saw Rescorla reassuring colleagues in the 10th-floor stairwell. "Rick, you've got to get out, too," Olson told him. "As soon as I make sure everyone else is out," Rescorla replied.

Morgan Stanley officials say Rescorla also told employees that "today is a day to be proud to be American" and that "tomorrow, the whole world will be talking about you." They say he also sang "God Bless America" and Cornish folk tunes in the stairwells. Those reports could not be confirmed, although they don't sound out of character. He liked to sing in a crisis. But the documented truth is impressive enough. Morgan Stanley managing director Bob Sloss was the only employee who didn't evacuate the 66th floor after the first plane hit, pausing to call his family and several underlings, even taking a call from a Bloomberg News reporter. Then the second plane hit, and his office walls cracked, and he felt the tower wagging like a dog's tail. He clambered down to the 10th floor, and there was Rescorla, sweating through his suit in the heat, telling people they were almost out, making no move to leave himself.

Rick did not make it out. Neither did two of his security officers who were at his side. But only three other Morgan Stanley employees died when their building was obliterated. (4)

However, over 2600 employees walked out of the south tower and in to the rest of their lives that morning.

Incredibly, you can "meet" Rick Rescorla via this video interview made in 1998.

He discusses Ia Drang and beyond, with some chilling words for the world today. Remind yourself as you watch and listen that he was speaking in 1998 - and that the view you see behind him no longer exists.

Listen to the man and then you can add your signature to an online petition calling on the President to award the Medal of Freedom to Rick Rescorla.

A PETITION TO PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH TO AWARD THE PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL OF FREEDOM TO C.R."RICK" RESCORLA FOR HEROISM AND GALLANTRY BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY ON SEPTEMBER 11,2001.

MR. RESCORLA CAME TO THIS COUNTRY AS AN IMMIGRANT TO BECOME AN OFFICER IN THE ARMY. MR RESCORLA SERVED WITH SUCH DISTINCTION AS AN OFFICER IN VIET NAM THAT ALL WHO SERVED WITH HIM CONSIDER HIM THE BRAVEST MAN WE HAVE EVER KNOWN. HE WAS HIGHLY DECORATED FOR HIS BRAVERY AND LEADERSHIP IN COMBAT. HE BECAME A US CITIZEN AND SOUGHT A HIGHER EDUCATION OBTAINING A BACHELOR AND MASTERS DEGREE AT UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA AND FURTHER OBTAINING A LAW DEGREE BEFORE SERVING A AS TEACHER AT USC LAW SCHOOL BEFORE BEING LURED TO THE WORLD OF COMMERCIAL BANKING. MR. RESCORLA'S SPECIALTY WAS SECURITY AND SECURITY LAW. IN 1993 HE WAS THE LAST MAN OUT OF THE TRADE TOWERS AFTER EVACUATING EVERYONE. ON SEPT.11TH IN SPITE OF BEING TOLD HIS BUILDING WAS NOT IN DANGER, HE IMPLEMENTED THE EVACUATION PLAN HE HAD DEVELOPED FOR HIS FIRM, MORGAN STANLEY. AS A DIRECT RESULT OF HIS EFFORTS THAT DAY AND HIS QUICK ACTION, OVER 2600 EMPLOYEES WERE SAVED. MR RESCORLA WAS LAST SEEN GOING UP TO RESCUE PEOPLE WHO WERE UNABLE TO GET DOWN. HIS ACTIONS REFLECT THE VERY BEST ABOUT AMERICA, ITS CITIZENS AND ITS DREAMS.

THE UNDERSIGNED URGE YOU TO RECOGNIZE MR RESCORLA BY BESTOWING THIS HIGHEST HONOR TO THIS MOST DESERVING MAN.

People who knew Rescorla note that all this is exactly what he wouldn't want.

"He shunned public praise for his past heroism, kept his war photos and medals in a closet, and told his wife he didn't want to see the Mel Gibson movie based on "We Were Soldiers" when it came out. To the friends he left behind, his death made a kind of cosmic sense on a day when the universe was out of order: The right man in the right place at the right time. He left in a blaze of glory. With no parade. Rescorla was a man who didn't need to be reminded of the high price of freedom.

"However we do..." (4)

Perhaps a Shakespeare quote then?

"His life was gentle, and the elements
So mix'd in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world 'This was a man!'"

The tragedy of 911 was this multiplied by three thousand.

Never forget.

Sources:

(1) More information on LZ Xray and the battle at Ia Drang can be found at the web page devoted to the battle.

(2) You can read a better account of the life of Rick Rescorla from The New Yorker. Please do so.

The article, by James Stewart, formed the basis for his book on Rick Rescorla's life: Heart of a Soldier. I learned of this book only recently through the comments section below, have since purchased it, and agree wholeheartedly with those who recommend it without reservation.

(3) More insight from Vietnam Magazine

(4) And even more from The American Legion.

Rick Rescorla and his two deputies, Jorge Velazquez and Godwin Forde, inside the World Trade Center on 911.

Eight years of postscripts...

To my visitors from the Cav and the Ia Drang

I'm honored by your presence, and hope I've done right by your fallen brother.

May a fair wind ever find you and ease the burdens of your day.

OUR HEARTS, SO STOUT, HAVE BROUGHT US FAME,
FOR SOON TIS KNOWN FROM WHENCE WE CAME.
WHERE'ER WE GO THEY DREAD THE NAME...

I salute you.

Update: As promised in comments, Carradine has sent his recording of the poem about Rick - it's posted below. Many thanks sir!

Carridine's rendition of "Hero":

Based on the following:

Fred McBee | September 9, 2003 11:55 AM
Thank you for this tribute to my magnificent friend. Those who would like to know more about Rick can read the recent bestseller, HEART OF A SOLDIER by James B. Stewart. As for me, I've always been partial to the following poem:

HERO

A little clutch of veterans share a table in a bar,
There's a guy off in the corner coaxing tunes from his guitar.
They watch the Hudson River as it rolls towards the bend
And they talk of Rick Rescorla as a comrade and a friend.

While out across the water, many ocean-miles away
Within a Cornish Tavern by a sandy Cornish Bay,
Another group are gathered, reminiscing as a clan,
And their thoughts are all of Tammy, from the schoolboy to the man.

And every head among them has a picture in its mind
Which time and place and memory have captured and consigned,
Now the pictures weld together until only one remains,
Of a sturdy, selfless hero guiding others from the flames.

It's a picture which unites them in their glory and their grief,
More eloquent than eulogies, confirming their belief
That theirs had been a privilege to saunter at his side
And in the way he'd lived his life had Rick Rescorla died.

The veterans recalled him in the killing fields of war
As a man whose potent presence would inspire and reassure,
Just one among his brothers when the skies began to fall,
Yet one whom they regarded as a father to them all.

And now their eyes will moisten at the mention of his name
And the sources and the substance of the legend he became,
When mayhem drove the best of men to crave their mother's love,
He'd stand and croon an anthem to the gory gods above.

And on that evil morning, so deceptively serene,
Amid another carnage, just as callous and obscene
Again he took the mantle of the sainted and the strong
To save the lives of others with a blessing and a song.

Between the Hudson River and the sandy shores of Hayle,
Though eyes encompass differences of latitude and scale,
All hands are linked together in the testament they bear,
They are but Rick Rescorla's friends, united by a prayer.

By David Prowse 2001 - WESTERN MORNING NEWS Cornwall UK

Those who wish to help keep the memory alive are encouraged to link this post via these banners:

Update January 6, 2004:

To have his legacy live on in the form of a Bronze statue at the new National Infantry Museum in Ft. Benning, Georgia donate to:

Go here for the announcement from Susan Rescorla.

2006 Update: Rick's statue was unveiled at Ft Benning in April, 2006.

2009 Update: Rick Rescorla was recognized with The Above & Beyond Citizen Honors, presented in March, 2009 by the less than 100 living Medal of Honor recipients who constitute the Congressional Medal of Honor Society.

May, 2011: I've reposted this September, 2003 post many times since that day, usually on Memorial Day, or the anniversaries of 9/11. In all that time, I looked forward to reposting it today.

Rick,
We got that son of a bitch.

Susan (and all those who found themselves living her nightmare since),
Thoughts were with you yesterday. God bless you. We can dream a bit more now...

America,
Watch Robert Edwards' video with Rick above. (Or here.) Listen to what he says.

Stop. Take a deep breath.

Steady?

Onward, then...

The Rescorla memorial - Hayle, Cornwall, UK

Be sure to visit (and bookmark) rickrescorla.com.

And if you haven't read the salutes to Rick in the comments below - from his wife, comrades, friends, and folks from all over the world, you've missed the best possible testimony to the fine character of this man.

2003-09-08 11:50:06