As we approach the 25th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks against the United States, Townhall plans to honor the lives lost and the lives forever changed with our "Heroes of 9/11" series. Every day from now until September 11, we will highlight an American hero. This year, most especially, we wish not simply to commemorate an event, but the character of exceptional men and women who demonstrated the best of humanity in one of its darkest moments. More than that, we want to educate younger generations for whom September 11 is little more than a historical episode so that we embody what it means to "Never Forget."

In 1990, Rick Rescorla, head of security for Dean Witter, asked his longtime friend, Dan Hill, a simple question about the World Trade Center building where he worked: "How would you take this out?"

At this point, Rescorla and Hill had known each other for 30 years. They met in Rhodesia and served together in Vietnam. In 1972, Hill was Rescorla's best man at his first wedding, and he helped Rescorla through the subsequent divorce. Hill would later reprise his best man role when, in 1999, Rescorla married Susan Greer. Rescorla met Greer while out for a jog in 1998, and the two were instantly smitten and soon fell deeply in love. They married in St. Augustine, where Hill lived.

But almost a decade before that happy day, Rescorla and Hill were just two men looking at the security situation at Manhattan's most prominent skyscrapers.

"How would you take this out?"

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The New Yorker detailed what happened next. Hill asked to see the basement, and Rescorla took him down an entrance ramp into a parking garage. There was no security, and no one asked why Rescorla and Hill were down there. Hill, who had training in counterterrorism, looked at the basement and told Rescorla, "This is a soft touch," referring to a load-bearing column in the middle of the garage. "I'd drive a truck full of explosives in here, walk out, and light it off."

Hill had simply confirmed what Rescorla, who worked at Dean Witter (which would later merge with Morgan Stanley) in the South Tower, had already suspected: the building had major security concerns. Rescorla then arranged a meeting with the security official for the Port Authority of New York. According to Hill, "They told Rick to kiss off...they told him 'You lease your stories, you worry about that. The rest of the building is not your concern.'"

Three years later, Islamic terrorists set off a truck bomb in the basement, killing six people. Following the bombing, Rescorla and Hill worked together and sketched out how future anti-American terrorists might carry out attacks in New York (and other major cities). It was Rescorla who considered that an air-based attack on the World Trade Center was a possibility, theorizing terrorists could fly a cargo plane into one of the buildings, perhaps laden with explosives or biological weapons. These prospects concerned Rescorla, as his company occupied almost two dozen floors in the South Tower. Rescorla, whose office was on the 44th floor, recommended leaving the World Trade Center altogether for lower-profile buildings in New Jersey.

However, the lease didn't expire until 2006, so Rescorla pivoted to creating an evacuation plan for the company. This is where his military experience shone through. Twice a year, under Rescorla's orders, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter employees were made to move to the building's emergency staircases and walk down them in pairs. The evacuation began with the topmost of the company's 22 floors, and as the last pair passed each of the lower floors, the next group would fall in line. Rescorla demanded compliance and discipline with these drills. He would brook no dissent, even though some people gave him a hard time. That persistence and practice would eventually save lives.

On the morning of September 11, Rescorla got up as he always did at 4:30 AM. Susan was busy packing because the couple was flying to Italy on September 12 for her daughter's wedding in Tuscany.

Rescorla's mind was on an important business meeting that day; Dean Witter had sued the Port Authority over the 1993 bombing, and Rescorla was set to be deposed that afternoon about inadequate security at the World Trade Center. Before leaving, he told Susan, "I've never felt better in my life" and added "I love you so." Then he headed for his train.

At 8:46 AM, American Airlines Flight 11 hit the North Tower. Just 17 minutes later, United Airlines Flight 175 would hit the South Tower, where Rick Rescorla was already evacuating his staff.

Here's a recounting from The New Yorker:

A half hour later, [Susan] was on the phone with one of her daughters when she got another call. She put her daughter on hold; it was another daughter, calling from Manhattan. “Put on the TV!” she yelled. Susan rushed to the set and she saw smoke pouring from the north tower.

She hung up the phone and tried to reach Rick, in the south tower. Barbara Williams, who worked with Rescorla on the forty-fourth floor, told her, “Don’t worry. It’s fine, it’s contained. Rick is getting everyone out. He’s out there with the bullhorn now.” Susan went back to the TV.

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 says Rescorla told him the Port Authority had ordered employees in the South Tower to stay put. Rescorla was having none of it. 

"I said, 'Piss off, you son of a b***h,'" Rescorla told Hill. "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 f**k out of here."

Hill was watching television when the plane hit the South Tower. It became clear that this was no accident. It was one of the scenarios Rescorla and Hill had mapped out eight years earlier after the 1993 bombing.

Rescorla survived the impact and once again spoke with Susan. He told her, "Stop crying. 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." He then disconnected the call.

A short while later, Hill was on the phone with Susan, trying to comfort her, when she screamed. The South Tower had collapsed, just 53 minutes after Flight 175 hit between the 77th and 85th floors.

"Rescorla is dead," Hill told his wife.

But before he died, Rick Rescorla was a hero. Ten minutes before the South Tower collapsed, Morgan Stanley employee Bob Sloss said he saw Rescorla on the 10th floor. Sloss told Rescorla to leave.

"I will as soon as I make sure everyone else is out," Rescorla reportedly told him. Then Rescorla went back up the stairs. 

He was never seen again.

Rescorla's body was never recovered, and he was officially declared dead three weeks later. Susan held a memorial service for him in October 2001, and Hill attended. A permanent memorial to Rescorla was later erected in his birthplace of Hayle, Cornwall.

Of the 2,700 Morgan Stanley employees in the building that day, only 13 died. Rick Rescorla was one of them. Thanks to his foresight, his planning, and his selfless bravery, hundreds of his colleagues were able to go home to their families that night.

Morgan Stanley wrote of Rescorla's bravery, too, saying, "The pain and scale of loss on September 11 still haunts many to this day. Because the firm had planned so meticulously for such an attack to occur, though, it also became a symbol of resiliency." It noted that then-CEO Phil Purcell had no doubt that Rescorla's planning and actions that Tuesday morning "averted a much bigger disaster."

On November 7, 2019, Rick Rescorla was posthumously awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal, the second-highest civilian honor. In his citation, President Trump said of Rescorla, "Our debt to you is beyond measure. We can never reverse the horrors of that day. We can never replace the precious lives we lost. But on behalf of our entire nation, I pledge that we will forever and always remember this incredible American hero, Colonel Rick Rescorla. We will never, ever forget."