WASHINGTON (TNND) — President Donald Trump posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 9/11 hero Welles Crowther on Tuesday, honoring the “Man in the Red Bandana” for helping people escape the World Trade Center’s South Tower before he died in its collapse.
Trump presented the nation’s highest civilian honor to Crowther’s family during a White House event honoring FDNY first responders and other heroes ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
“This means the world to me, my daughters, Paige and Honor, and our entire family,” Crowther’s mother, Alison, said while accepting the award. “This will be treasured for generations to come.”
“On 9/11, nearly 3,000 precious souls were stolen from us,” Trump said, adding that Americans would “never forget” those killed or “the immortal heroes of September 11, 2001.”
Crowther, a 24-year-old equities trader and volunteer firefighter, wore a red bandana over his nose and mouth as he guided survivors from the South Tower’s 78th-floor sky lobby, according to the National Sept. 11 Memorial & Museum. He made three trips to the lobby, saving as many people as he could before the building collapsed.
The event also featured a 16,900-pound steel beam recovered from the South Tower and displayed on the White House Ellipse. Trump called it “a reminder that America is blessed with a strength no fire can consume, no evil can conquer and no terror can destroy.”
The Tunnel to Towers Foundation brought the beam to Washington as part of its Steel Across America initiative. The 10,500-mile journey began in May and is scheduled to return the artifact to Ground Zero on Sept. 11 after stops in more than 20 states.
Trump praised the foundation’s chairman and CEO, Frank Siller, and remembered his brother, FDNY firefighter Stephen Siller, who was killed while responding to the attacks. The foundation said the tour is intended to create “moments of connection” for those who lived through 9/11 and educational opportunities for younger generations.
The president also recognized the families of 9/11 victims, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, whose firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, lost 658 employees in the attacks.
Trump said the Coast Guard will commission a new fast-response cutter Saturday in New York named for Jeffrey Palazzo, an FDNY Rescue Squad 5 member and Coast Guard reservist killed while responding at the World Trade Center.
