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While bidding the Nation farewell, President Bush remembered 9/11: "As the years passed, most Americans were able to return to life much as it had been before 9/11, but I never did."

Yet Bush has apparently forgotten the greatest hero of that fateful day -- Rick Rescorla, who gave his life while saving more than 2,700 people in the World Trade Center.

Rick Rescorla was on duty on the 44th floor of the World Trade Center, Tower Two. He was vice president for corporate security at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. and a jumbo jet had just plowed into the north tower.

The Port Authority (owners of the building) told him not to evacuate and to order his people to stay at their desks. Rescola told the Port Authority, "Piss off. 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 out of here!"

Rick Rescorla was born in Cornwall, England in 1939. After service in the British armed forces, he earned a commission as an officer in the U.S. Army. Rescorla was then sent to Vietnam with the 7th Cavalry Regiment (Airmobile). He fought in the 1965 Battle of Ia Drang, described in the book "We Were Soldiers Once...And Young," and is the gritty soldier pictured on the book's cover. Co-author Lieutenant General Harold Moore described him as "the best platoon leader I ever saw." Rescorla's men nicknamed him "Hard Core" for his extraordinary courage in battle.

In 1992, Rescorla warned the Port Authority about the possibility of a truck bomb attack in the unguarded basement of the World Trade Center. He was ignored. When Islamic terrorists used this method in the 1993 attack, Rescorla was instrumental in evacuating the building and was the last man out.

Rescorla then predicted the terrorists would return to finish the job with aircraft. He

recommended that Morgan Stanley move to a safer location in New Jersey, but their lease in Manhattan did not end until 2006.

At Rescorla's insistence, all employees, including senior executives, began practicing full-blown, no-notice emergency evacuations every three months. There was much grousing and complaining by high-powered stock brokers about being yanked away from their phones and being made to hike down forty or fifty stories. But it all paid off on 9/11.

At 8:46 a.m. on September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 11 struck Tower One. Rescorla had most of Morgan Stanley's 2700 employees and hundreds of visitors safely out of the building by the time United Airlines Flight 175 hit Tower Two at 9:02 a.m.

Rescorla reminded everyone to "be proud to be an American. Everyone will be talking about you tomorrow." He sang God Bless America and military songs over his bullhorn to keep the evacuees calm, including his version of the song from the movie "Zulu":

"Men of Cornwall stand ye steady;
It cannot be ever said ye
for the battle were not ready;
Stand and never yield!"

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