SOURCE: Rabinowitz, Dorothy. “His Last Battlefield.” Wall Street Journal (11 September 2002): D10.

In the following review, Rabinowitz examines Heart of a Soldier, James B. Stewart's biography of Rick Rescorla, the chief of security at Morgan Stanley in New York City, who was responsible for securing the evacuation of 2,700 of his co-workers while losing his own life in the effort.

The subject of a number of Sept. 11 pieces, Rick Rescorla is nonetheless a name unfamiliar to most Americans. That could soon change with the publication of Heart of a Soldier, James B. Stewart's stunningly detailed history of the British-born Rescorla, who became an American citizen and fought with conspicuous valor in Vietnam—which was, as it turned out, not the last battleground to test this remarkable character.

Long after Vietnam, he took a job for which he was eminently suited—that of security chief at the brokerage house of Dean...