Never Forget — A Hero’s Profile: Welles Crowther

Sep­tem­ber 1, 2009.  We’re ten days from the eighth “anniver­sary” (I hate using that word) of 9/11.  I don’t know why, but lately I’ve been fix­ated by some of the accounts and lives of some of the vic­tims from that awful, awful day.  So I fig­ured that I’d do some­thing to remind every­one of what hap­pened that day, and why we should never become blasé about what happened.

I recently dis­cov­ered a link to the evi­dence from the trial of ter­ror­ist Zacarias Mous­saoui.  I urge you to visit the site.  Click on every link.  Look at every pic­ture, and lis­ten to every audio file — espe­cially if you’re one of those kook “con­spir­acy the­o­rists” who believe our gov­ern­ment was behind the attack.  I must warn you — it’s grue­some.  It’s hor­ri­ble.  But I believe that those of us who were not directly affected by the tragedy that hap­pened eight years ago need to see this.  We as a coun­try need to make it fresh in our minds again and real­ize that there are those out there who are hell-bent on our destruc­tion as a nation and as a way of life.  And guess what?  They’re win­ning. 

If you don’t believe that, you haven’t been pay­ing atten­tion.  Look at the politi­cians and what they’re doing.  They keep try­ing to drive that wedge between the peo­ple of this coun­try.  The cur­rent admin­is­tra­tion is oper­at­ing from a pre-September 11 atti­tude that ter­ror­ism is not an act of war, but a “law enforce­ment” issue.  I’m sorry, but that’s just not the case.  These fanat­ics will stop at noth­ing to kill inno­cents.  They don’t care about polit­i­cal cor­rect­ness, diplo­macy, or the Geneva Con­ven­tion.  Just ask the fam­ily of Daniel Pearl.  Just ask the fam­i­lies of all the peo­ple on the planes that were crashed into the World Trade Cen­ter, the Pen­ta­gon, and the field in Shanksville, Penn­syl­va­nia.  The only thing they care about is the mur­der of “infi­dels”.  It is a war.  It’s a war of ide­olo­gies and beliefs — between Sharia law and the law that every­one is born free and deserves free­dom.  But for now, enough of politics.

Let’s take a look at the real heroes of 9/11.

A True Hero

The first per­son I would like to write about is a man by the name of Welles Remy Crowther.  He was an equi­ties trader and vol­un­teer fire­fighter who was on the 104^th floor of 2 World Trade Cen­ter (the south tower) when United Air­lines Flight 175 slammed into the building:

Welles Remy Crowther was born the old­est of three chil­dren, dis­play­ing his fear­less­ness, spirit and self­less­ness early and often grow­ing up in the New York’s north­ern sub­urbs, his par­ents say.

He doted on his two younger sis­ters and fol­lowed his father Jefferson’s lead, always car­ry­ing a ban­danna in his back pocket (Welles pre­ferred red, his father blue) and join­ing him as a vol­un­teer fire­fighter as a teenager.

A star stu­dent and lacrosse player at Boston Col­lege, Crowther joined San­dler O’Neil and Part­ners after grad­u­a­tion, set­tling into his office on the South Tower’s 104^th floor.

After the plane crashed, he decided to take charge and help some of those trapped above the impact site get to safety.  He rushed back and forth, up and down the stairs, try­ing to save as many peo­ple as he could.  Two women — Judy Wein and Ling Young — were two he helped to save.  Ms. Wein, an AON employee, was on the 103^rd floor and Ms. Young was on the 78^th floor in the sky lobby wait­ing on an express ele­va­tor when the plane crashed into the floor she was on.  Fire and debris forced her to the floor.

He dropped off the woman some 15 floors later and headed back upstairs, accord­ing to Young, say­ing that more peo­ple needed assistance.

When he returned the 78^th floor, Wein was wait­ing in pain, the impact hav­ing bro­ken her arm, cracked her ribs and punc­tured a lung.

He was found on the first floor, along with numer­ous fire­fight­ers, where they had set up a makeshift com­mand cen­ter.  There was no doubt he was aid­ing in the res­cue effort.  He did not suf­fer any burns, and appar­ently died instantly from the col­lapse of the build­ing.  His fam­ily set up a trust in his name — the Welles R. Crowther Trust.

His friends also set up The Fel­low­ship of the Red Ban­danna.  This man truly was a hero, and may his legacy live on for­ever.

Related Posts:

• 9/11 — May We Never Forget
• Photo-op Fright­ens New Yorkers
• Flash­back: Sep­tem­ber 10, 2001
• How will we win?
• Eric’s Word of the Day v 1.0: Obfuscate