The Red Bandanna: A life, A Choice, A Legacy Hardcover – September 6, 2016 by Tom Rinaldi (Penguin Press)

This is very well written true story of an American hero during the tragic 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. This 24 year old Financial Analyst responded to the attack by helping at least 12 burned and injured civilians down a stairwell, even carrying one of them, to get them to the lower floor elevators and eventually to safety, then went back up to find more. A volunteer fireman who aspired to eventually become a member of the NYFD and had filled out an application for that occupation at the time of the attack. This story focuses on him as a person, then the day of the attack, and then how his parents eventually learned of his final hours through survivors that he had helped save. An emotional tribute to the common American who seems always able to rise to the occasion - Welles Crowther will go down as a noble example of what an American hero should be!

The story of Welles Crowther, whose actions on 9/11 offer a lasting lesson on character, calling and courage
  
One Sunday morning before church, when Welles Crowther was a young boy, his father gave him a red handkerchief for his back pocket. Welles kept it with him that day, and just about every day to come; it became a fixture and his signature.

A standout athlete growing up in Upper Nyack, NY, Welles was also a volunteer at the local fire department, along with his father. He cherished the necessity and the camaraderie, the meaning of the role. Fresh from college, he took a Wall Street job on the 104th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center, but the dream of becoming a firefighter with the FDNY remained.

When the Twin Towers fell, Welles’s parents had no idea what happened to him. In the unbearable days that followed, they came to accept that he would never come home. But the mystery of his final hours persisted. Eight months after the attacks, however, Welles’s mother read a news account from several survivors, badly hurt on the 78th floor of the South Tower, who said they and others had been led to safety by a stranger, carrying a woman on his back, down nearly twenty flights of stairs.  After leading them down, the young man turned around.  “I’m going back up,” was all he said. 

The survivors didn’t know his name, but despite the smoke and panic, one of them remembered a single detail clearly: the man was wearing a red bandanna.  


Tom Rinaldi’s The Red Bandanna is about a fearless choice, about a crucible of terror and the indomitable spirit to answer it. Examining one decision in the gravest situation, it celebrates the difference one life can make.