The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11

by Garrett M. Graff

One of the firemen from Rescue 1 looked up and said, “We may not live through today.” We looked at him, and we looked at each other, and we said, “You’re right.” We took the time to shake each other’s hands and wish each other good luck and “Hope I’ll see you later,” which is especially poignant for me because we all had that acknowledgment that this might be our last day on earth and we went to work anyway.

Ultimately, eleven Morgan Stanley staff—out of more than 2,700 in the South Tower—died on September 11th. Rescorla and two of his fellow security personnel were among those eleven.

Ironically, the attacks would ultimately kill veteran FBI agent John O’Neill, who had led the al-Qaeda task force and who had retired in August from the bureau to start a new job as the security director at the World Trade Center.

Thomas Von Essen, commissioner, FDNY: To understand all this, it is important to understand what it means to be a firefighter. Firefighters do not run away. They do not leave if they think they can stay.

By the end of the day, they had collectively evacuated somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 people from Manhattan—a maritime rescue larger than the World War II evacuation from Dunkirk.

There were three passengers aboard of Arab descent who had backpacks, and people—average people, not police officers—demanded to know what was in them. The guys looked scared and opened their backpacks. Inside were just books.