It wasn't just Neil and Buzz. It took 400,000 people to get us to the Moon, On This Day 1969. Thanks!

Rick Rescorla --I had the privilege of meeting him -- was British-born and volunteered for the U.S. Army before becoming an American citizen. Sent to Vietnam as a platoon leader, he fought at the Ia Drang Valley, the largest engagement in the Vietnam War after being called in to replace a company that had suffered the heaviest casualties in the first day of combat. Rescorla not only positioned his men in the bloody, fighting pits the previous Americans had occupied, but also crawled alone into the enemy lines to survey the American defenses from the enemy's perspective, then crawled back and re-positioned his men. The next morning, they fought off an assault without losing a single man. Two days later, when a relief column of Americans were ambushed and nearly decimated, Rescorla helicoptered in with a handful of reinforcements; his confidence, skill and courage helped transform hopelessness into resolve, and helped save survivors who had been in immediate danger of death.

But Rescorla's greatest contribution to saving lives occurred on 9/11 at the World Trade Center. As head of security operations for Morgan Stanley, Rick had predicted a terrorist act involving airplanes. When planes hit the twin towers, Rescorla was ordered (during the chaos) to keep the thousands of Morgan Stanley employees right where they were. He ignored this order and began evacuating people along the routes he'd already scouted and planned. Making sure they were safe, he turned around and went back in to make sure that no one had been left behind. He saved 2,687 lives on that day alone -- but he did not save his own.

Just before the building collapsed, he telephoned his wife and said, "If something happens to me, I want you to know that you made my life."

-- nominated by Randall Wallace, screenwriter of Best Picture winner Braveheart, writer/director of both Heaven is for Real and We Were Soldiers, and director of Secretariat.