After reading Walter Cogan's obituary, I just didn't think that those words did him justice.  Therefore I hope you don't mind if I add a personal note, not to correct anything, but just to flesh it out. 

While I have known Walt Cogan for a very long time, it was only after we both retired from the PA, about twenty years ago, that I got to know him particularly well.  At that time, we formed a golfing foursome and, through Walt's courtesy, began playing at Picatinny Arsenal, where Walt is a member. The foursome consisted of the late Jim Kirk (Port Dep't), Al Pettenati (WTC Observation Deck), Walt and myself. 

You should know that, up at Picatinny, Walt is known as COLONEL Cogan, and also that he gets a snappy hand salute when our car clears the security guard.  Well, it took an awful lot for Walter to earn that title.  Come back with me to the winter of 1941.  Walter had just turned 21, and only one month later, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and World War II was on.  Walter immediately volunteered for the Air Force (back then, it was part of the Army, and was known as the Army Air Corps.) 

Walter quickly finished his training with high marks, and was officially designated as a navigator.  Pretty soon, Walter, who had never before even been in a plane, was routinely navigating training missions from Peyote, Texas to Perth Amboy, NJ, where he and his colleagues would simulate the bombing of the refineries and the vast fuel storage tank farms on the Jersey coast. 

Japan never realized it, but with each successful "bombing" of Perth Amboy, the Japanese Empire was getting closer and closer to its deserved end.  And what plane was Walter navigating?  It was the giant new Superfortress - the Boeing B-29.

Then, after extensive training on short-runway landings and take-offs, the Air Force concluded that Walter and his buddies were now ready for the real thing, and they were shipped off to the South Pacific. 

To say that they persevered in the Pacific is a vast understatement.  Their bombings brought the Japanese fuel supply program to a virtual standstill.  In fact, at the end of the war, the Japanese fighter planes didn't have enough fuel to even take off to challenge the American bombers flying overhead. 

In addition to shutting off the Japanese fuel supply, the Air Force struck terror in the hearts of the Japanese people by fire-bombing Tokyo, almost at will. 

Even with these successes, there was still another very ominous side left to these missions.  At the mission's end, Walter still had to get his plane home.  And home wasn't exactly LaGuardia Airport with its runway lights and other navigational aids.  No indeed, home was a minuscule island in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean, with little or no lighting, and no navigational aids.  If you missed it, you missed it, and your welcoming committee had fins on their backs!  The amount of fuel on board was barely enough to make the round trip.  Day after day, Walter had to find his home base on his very first try.  His crew members were relying on Walt to do just that.  And that reliance was well placed.  Walter came through, day after day. 

And then when Walter came over to the Port Authority, the same qualities emerged.  People soon realized that you could rely on Walter Cogan.   

Now, that's kind of a nice thing to be remembered for, isn't it?  That people could rely on you. 

Neil Lynch (World Trade)