SLehman
Hyper Active Member
Military History Quotation of the Day
“We all thought we were going to die that night, and he gave us our courage back. I figured if he’s walking around singing, the least I can do is stop trembling.â€
– An anonymous U.S. Army Sergeant, replying on the actions of his Platoon Commander, Lieutenant Cyril Rescorla, during the battle of the Ia Drang Valley, November 1965. A British soldier who had done tours of duty in Cyprus and Rhodesia, he enlisted in the United States Army and was shipped to Vietnam. Deployed into the Ia Drang battle, and after he had studied the terrain, positioned his weapons, and deployed booby traps, he calmly went from foxhole to foxhole to check fields of fire while singing a slow Cornish mining tune, “Going Up Cambourne Hill Coming Down.†His calmness and singing immediately calmed his soldiers, who would go on to survive four enemy assaults, killing over 200 enemy, while only sustaining minor injuries.
Rescorla would retire as a Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve and would become a senior executive with Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Company, based out of the World Trade Centre. On 11 September 2001 (12 years ago today), after the first jet was flown into the first of the twin towers, Rescorla would lead his company’s nearly 2,700 employees to safety. As the employees left the building, Rescorla remained inside searching for stragglers, determined to leave no one behind. He was last seen near the stairwell of the tenth floor, reassuring everyone that they would be all right. It is rumored that he sang his Cornish song again and led everyone in renditions of “God Bless America.†Rescorla called his wife and told her she had made his life, and then telephoned an old friend from Vietnam to pass on his last words before he died when the tower crumbled.
As quoted in “Army Leadership: Competent, Confident, and Agile,†published by Headquarters, Department of the (United States) Army, October 2006.
“We all thought we were going to die that night, and he gave us our courage back. I figured if he’s walking around singing, the least I can do is stop trembling.â€
– An anonymous U.S. Army Sergeant, replying on the actions of his Platoon Commander, Lieutenant Cyril Rescorla, during the battle of the Ia Drang Valley, November 1965. A British soldier who had done tours of duty in Cyprus and Rhodesia, he enlisted in the United States Army and was shipped to Vietnam. Deployed into the Ia Drang battle, and after he had studied the terrain, positioned his weapons, and deployed booby traps, he calmly went from foxhole to foxhole to check fields of fire while singing a slow Cornish mining tune, “Going Up Cambourne Hill Coming Down.†His calmness and singing immediately calmed his soldiers, who would go on to survive four enemy assaults, killing over 200 enemy, while only sustaining minor injuries.
Rescorla would retire as a Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve and would become a senior executive with Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Company, based out of the World Trade Centre. On 11 September 2001 (12 years ago today), after the first jet was flown into the first of the twin towers, Rescorla would lead his company’s nearly 2,700 employees to safety. As the employees left the building, Rescorla remained inside searching for stragglers, determined to leave no one behind. He was last seen near the stairwell of the tenth floor, reassuring everyone that they would be all right. It is rumored that he sang his Cornish song again and led everyone in renditions of “God Bless America.†Rescorla called his wife and told her she had made his life, and then telephoned an old friend from Vietnam to pass on his last words before he died when the tower crumbled.
As quoted in “Army Leadership: Competent, Confident, and Agile,†published by Headquarters, Department of the (United States) Army, October 2006.
