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Read this on the wonderful Powerline blog this morning.

Power Line – Are You A Racist?

Are You A Racist?
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September 18, 2009 Posted by John at 9:19 PM

These days it’s hard to tell. If you think government-run medicine is a bad thing, former President Jimmy Carter and many other Democrats say you’re most likely a racist. So Missourah.com explains everything in this handy chart:

I could be wrong, but I suspect that this is the last time any partisan faction will be able to broadcast the charge of “racism” and have it taken even slightly seriously. The word “racism” used to have a meaning, but no one can remember what it was.

Some of you may not be aware of the wonderful Powerline Blog; for that reason, I’m taking this opportunity to post a very moving article published on 9/11 by Mr. Scott Johnson

Power Line – A day to be proud…

A day to be proud…
September 11, 2009 Posted by Scott at 9:14 PM

I first wrote about Rick Rescorla in 2003 after finishing James Stewart’s Heart of a Soldier, the book based on his New Yorker article “All the real heroes are dead.” (“The real heroes are dead” is what Rescorla would say in response to recognition of his heroism on the battlefield in Vietnam.) The book is good, not great, but it touches on all the themes of life in a thought-provoking way: life and death, love and friendship, heroism and sacrifice, destiny and fate, and man’s search for meaning.

Rescorla was a British native who moved to the United States to join the Army and fight in Vietnam. Rescorla was inspired to move to the United States in part by his friendship with Dan Hill. Their friendship is the one constant theme of the book. Hill and Rescorla had become friends in Rhodesia; they consciously modeled themselves on the characters of Peachy and Dravot in Kipling’s story “The Man Who Would Be King.” Later they both served as officers in Vietnam, where in 1965 Rescorla saw harrowing combat in the Ia Drang Valley.

In April 2001, thanks to Hill’s efforts, Rescorla was inducted into the Army’s Officer Candidate School Hall of Fame for his service in Vietnam. The famous photo below depicts Rescorla in action in the Ia Drang Valley It is moving to read of the officers who sought Rescorla out to shake his hand and have him autograph their copies of We Were Soldiers Once…and Young, in which Rescorla plays a key role. .

Rescorla died a hero’s death saving his charges at Morgan Stanley in the south tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11. Rescorla was head of security for the company; he directed the evacuation in which he had long drilled the company’s WTC employees. Using a bullhorn he shephered his charges into the tower’s one usable fire escape and exhorted them that it was “a day to be proud to be an American.” The book closes with the words of Hill, who remained Rescorla’s best friend until his death. His haunting words form a fitting tribute to Rescorla:

One of my life’s biggest regrets is that I couldn’t have been with Rick at the moment of his great challenge and crisis of his life. Then again, maybe it was so destined, because if I didn’t survive, there would be nobody left to tell the story.

Kipling wrote that “all men should count with you, but none too much.” I failed there. Rick counted as the world to me.

Somebody cautioned that if a person or thing means the world to you, and you lose that person or thing, then you have lost the world. I lost the world when Rick died.

(First posted in 2005.)