Stories of the write stuff

Deirdre Newman

When Rick Rescorla was a platoon leader during the Vietnam War, his

small platoon prevailed over a massive group of Viet Cong in a battle

at Ia Drang Valley. On Sept. 11, 2001, Rescorla sacrificed his own

life in an attempt to evacuate every one of the employees at Morgan

Stanley Dean Witter, where he was vice president in charge of

security, from the south tower of the World Trade Center.

Rescorla’s heroic story is just one of many profiled in the book,

“Modern Day Heroes: In Defense of America,” co-compiled by Planning

Commissioner Bill Perkins. The book is available online only and will

be released in bookstores July 4.

Perkins’ colleague at World Financial, Pete Mitchell, came up with

the idea as a counterpoint to negative campaigning in the

presidential election, Mitchell said.

“It’s starting to get a little bit ugly,” Mitchell said. “We

wanted to bring a bright light, a positive view on America.”

The book contains more than 70 stories of heroes written by

politicians and non-elected officials. Mitchell and Perkins contacted

all 100 senators, 435 congressmen and 50 governors requesting

submissions. They received about 70 responses. Of those, they chose

37, Perkins said.

As word began to spread of their effort, they started receiving

calls from non-politicians, who had moving stories of heroes they

wanted to share as well, Mitchell said.

The book turned out to be split evenly along party lines, with

submissions by both California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, and

Sen. Elizabeth Dole, a Republican from North Carolina.

“We just wanted people to realize that every once in a while,

these politicians do stuff that’s good -- it’s not all bad,” Mitchell

said. “We’re pointing out some of the more positive things they do

for the community, from both sides of the aisle.”

Mitchell said he was especially moved by a eulogy written by Tony

DiRaimondo, for his son, Michael, who was killed while serving as a

flight medic in Iraq. Michael DiRaimondo was flying in an unarmored

Blackhawk helicopter on a mission to rescue wounded soldiers when it

was hit by a shoulder-launched rocket, killing everyone on board,

Mitchell said.

“It’s one thing for someone to charge up over a hill, not knowing

what’s on the other side and it’s a completely different thing to

know the enemy is waiting and shooting at you,” Mitchell said.

“That’s one of the reasons we provided Michael’s story.”

For Perkins, a letter that retired Col. Monty Warner submitted was

especially touching. The letter is to the husband of Warner’s former

secretary at the Pentagon, who was killed at her desk in the Sept. 11

attacks.

“I learned how many heroic and patriotic stories there are out

there and how excited people are to share them,” Perkins said.

Both said reading over the stories filled them with a tremendous

sense of gratitude.

“We would get these stories over the weeks,” Mitchell said. “And

we’d get them and read them and for me, personally, you’re almost

left with this sense of awe. I can’t almost comprehend the price that

some people are willing to pay for my behalf.”