Yates Greer

Enjoying the retired life in Southwest Florida. So much to do and see and all the time to do it.

[Echoes of War @EchoesofWarYT]

Twenty five years ago today, a 62 year old man with cancer in his bones walked 2,687 people out of the South Tower, and then he went back inside.

Rick Rescorla was born in Hayle, Cornwall in 1939. British Parachute Regiment in Cyprus at 18. Colonial police in Northern Rhodesia. Then he came to America, enlisted in the US Army in 1963, and in November 1965 he went into the Ia Drang Valley as a platoon leader with the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry.

Hal Moore called him the best platoon leader he ever saw. His men called him Hard Core. He sang to them in the dark, Wild Colonial Boy in an Australian accent, because he had worked out that men who are singing are not men who are panicking. That is Rescorla on the cover of We Were Soldiers Once and Young, bayonet fixed.

Thirty five years later he was head of security for Dean Witter, later Morgan Stanley, in the South Tower of the World Trade Center.

In 1990 he brought in his old friend Dan Hill and the two of them walked the basement. He warned the Port Authority that the parking garage was wide open, that somebody could drive in a truck full of explosives, walk out and light it off. Nothing was done. Three years later the 1993 bomb went off about thirty feet from the spot he had flagged.

After that he told Morgan Stanley the towers were still a target and the next attack would come out of the sky. He wanted the firm to leave Manhattan. The lease ran to 2006, so they stayed. Twenty two floors of the South Tower, roughly 2,700 people.

So he drilled them. Every three months, everyone, no exceptions, down the stairwells two abreast while he stood there with a stopwatch. Traders pulling seven figures resented being marched down concrete stairs by a Cornishman with a clipboard. He kept doing it anyway.

8:46 a.m. The North Tower is hit. Port Authority comes over the South Tower loudspeakers and tells everyone the building is secure and to go back to their desks. Rescorla picks up a bullhorn and tells his people to get out.

He phones Dan Hill. "The dumb sons of bitches told me not to evacuate. They said it's just Building One. I told them I'm getting my people out of here."

9:03 a.m. The second plane hits the South Tower, floors 77 through 85. His people are already in the stairwells, moving exactly the way they had been drilled, and Rescorla is on the bullhorn singing to them. Cornish songs. A version of Men of Harlech he had rewritten for Cornwall. Men of Cornwall stop your dreaming, can't you see their spearpoints gleaming.

He called his wife Susan from the stairs. They had been married two and a half years, met jogging in New Jersey. He told her to stop crying, that he had to get these people out safely, and that if something happened to him he wanted her to know he had never been happier, that she made his life.

Someone told him to get out. He said, as soon as I make sure everyone else is out.

2,687 Morgan Stanley employees went home that day. Thirteen did not, and four of those were Rescorla and the men who stayed in the building with him: Wesley Mercer, Jorge Velazquez, Godwin Forde.

He was last seen on the 10th floor, walking up.

The South Tower fell at 9:59. They never found him.

[Yates Greer @YCGreer]

@JusticeAnderson Not a discussion but high praise for the multi-talented Tovar.

[Yates Greer @YCGreer]

@Kalshi What does that even mean!

[Doug Lane @dlane]

I lost my wife and son in the Flight 5342 tragedy. I mostly show up on X to stay current on — and advocate for — aviation safety reform. But it's starting to feel like we're losing the plot. 1/6

[Yates Greer @YCGreer]

@JusticeAnderson The collection has become popular enough that it has been reproduced by grammar websites and educational organizations.

[Yates Greer @YCGreer]

@JusticeAnderson Each joke illustrating the concept itself. It has been shared extensively online, in classrooms, and on social media, and is generally attributed to Jill Thomas Doyle, although it has also circulated without attribution

[Yates Greer @YCGreer]

The Knicks' championship snaps a streak of 52 straight playoff appearances by MLB/NBA/NFL/NHL teams from the NYC metro area that ended without a title.

It was the 3rd-longest streak all-time by a metro area, behind only active streaks by Minneapolis-St. Paul (57) & Buffalo (55).

[Amnesty International USA @amnestyusa]

This is a blatant assault on the free press. Once again, the Trump administration is weaponizing national security to block journalists from accessing key information. Journalists have a right to report on the government’s actions, and we have a right to the free flow of information.

The Pentagon’s targeting of the press serves only to stifle scrutiny, evade accountability, and cover up any wrongdoings. It is part of a broad push to assert control over free speech and dismantle the foundations of a rights-respecting society.

We must not normalize these actions. The Trump administration must respect the independence of the press and stop using national security as an excuse to test, challenge, and erode our human rights.

https://t.co/fmzdOXvqfA

[Amnesty International USA @amnestyusa]

We are about to see two perpetrators of grave violations meet, each one comfortable in the knowledge that the other won’t hold them accountable for their actions.

https://t.co/2Z6mzy7qXv

[Yates Greer @YCGreer]

The groups said the advisory was necessary "in light of the deteriorating human rights situation in the United States and in the absence of meaningful action and concrete guarantees from FIFA, host cities, or the U.S. government."
#ICE #Minneapolis

[Yates Greer @YCGreer]

Amnesty International and dozens of US civil & human rights groups issue "World Cup travel advisory" Thus., warning tournament visitors of "rising authoritarianism and increasing violence" in the United States during President Donald Trump's aggressive immigration enforcement

[Yates Greer @YCGreer]

@OfficiaLogosLRB @Kalshi More people voted for Hilary than the Donald. With the electoral college the concept of one man one vote has never existed in US presidential elections

[Yates Greer @YCGreer]

@MatthewColler Bill Brown and Larry Csonka. Girlfriend's father was a Dolphin season ticket holder. I was a lifelong Viking fan, Super Bowl XIII was certainly one I remember after moving to the Twin Cities to attend the University of Minnesota.

[Yates Greer @YCGreer]

@Kalshi The Doomsday Clock is currently set at 85 seconds to midnight, the closest it's ever been in history. This update was announced on January 27, 2026, based on risks like nuclear threats, climate change, and emerging technologies.

[Yates Greer @YCGreer]

@JusticeAnderson Also the
10-12 @GopherMBB beat No. 10 MSU
10-14 @PortlandMBB beat No. 6 Gonzaga

It's the first time 2 teams with losing records entering the game beat AP Top 10 foes on the same day since February 22, 1992, when 9-15 NC State beat No. 4 UNC & 10-11 Notre Dame beat No. 2 UCLA.

[Yates Greer @YCGreer]

@JusticeAnderson Gophers are the only Division I team in the last 30 seasons to:

have 0 bench points
get outrebounded by double digits
allow 50+ points in a half

...and yet still win.

Division I teams had been 0-25 over that span when doing that in a game, losing by an average of 21.7 points.

[WBC24 | BNO News @BNOFeed]

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[Ryan Wright @rjwright14_]

Retweets count as double today and tomorrow! Retweet and comment for a chance to win a signed football by Andrew DePaola, Will, Reichard and Myself! There will be two winners!!

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Ryan Wright

[Neil deGrasse Tyson @neiltyson]

If a foreign adversary snuck into our Federal budget and cut Education and Science Research the way we’re cutting it ourselves — strategically undermining America’s long-term health, wealth, and security — we would likely consider it an act of war.

[Primal Facts @worldfacts06]

📅 Fact of the Day — 22nd November

On 22 November 1963, the world was shocked when U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas — a moment that changed global politics forever.