President Donald Trump revealed on May 22 that he will posthumously award 9/11 hero Welles Crowther, commonly referred to as the “Man in the Red Bandana,” the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Trump announced the award during a speech in front of Crowther’s mother and sisters on Friday in Suffern, New York, the same county where the heroic New Yorker served as a volunteer firefighter for Nyack Fire Department before he went to college and worked in New York City.
The 24-year-old, who was employed as an equities trader on the 104th floor of the South Tower, died after saving the lives of at least 18 people during the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
Crowther wore the red bandana to guide his peers to safety on that dark day. He did not get out of the burning building in time and died when the structure collapsed in lower Manhattan.
“I just want to congratulate his great mother on doing a phenomenal job in raising that young man,” Trump said. “Boy, what bravery. [He] saved those people and became a legend in a sense. Nobody else would have done what he did. So he's going to be getting the Presidential Medal of Freedom.”
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest honor that a president can award a civilian.
Crowther’s mother Alison wore a red bandana around her neck as she thanked the president for honoring her son and said it was “such a beautiful thing that even 25 years later, Welles's light still shines brightly.”
“I just realized early on that I couldn't pick up a weapon and go fight the bad guys myself, but the weapon I had was to work to bring good into the world, and that's what I continue to try to do every day,” she said during an impromptu speech on Friday afternoon.
Crowther’s mother has spent recent years traveling around the country to discuss her son’s courage and fearlessness to children.
“They're tremendously moved and inspired by this to be better people, and I see this over and over,” she said. “It's a beautiful thing.”
Crowther’s family did not learn of the 24-year-old’s bravery until a news report over Memorial Day Weekend in 2002 uncovered how he wore a red bandana to save people from the smoking tower.
His mother knew her son always kept a red bandana with him after his father encouraged him to carry one for “messy jobs,” according to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation.
The young man once even predicted, “With this red bandana, I’m going to change the world,” according to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation.