When Welles Crowther was a young boy in Nyack, NY, his father gave him a red handkerchief to keep in his back pocket, in case he ever needed it. He kept it with him on the way to church that day and nearly every day after. It was a fixture as he grew up, tucked in jeans or wrapped around his head as he played lacrosse for Boston College. The bandanna was a signature, long before it became a symbol. Welles was like a lot of us, if just a bit better...

On September 11, 2001, Michael Benfante went to work, just like any other day, in his 81st-floor office in the World Trade Center North Tower. Moments after the first plane struck, just twelve floors above him, Benfante organized his terrified employees, getting them moving down the stairwells. On his way down, he and another co-worker encountered a woman in a wheelchair on the 68th floor. Benfante, the woman and Benfante's co-worker then embarked...