Tunnels to Towers wraps up national 9/11 tour

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(The Center Square) – Twenty-five years ago Friday, New York firefighter Stephen Siller ran through the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel toward the burning twin towers where he, like so many others that day, would lose his life. Friday morning, his family walked that same route in his honor, completing a four-and-a-half month 9/11 remembrance tour across the U.S.

Siller’s older brother Frank founded charitable organization the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, to honor and remember his brother’s sacrifice. The foundation focuses on helping veterans, first responders and their families, including by providing mortgage-free homes and specially adapted housing.

“[Stephen’s] act of heroism, that selflessness, that ultimate price he paid, has now changed the lives of thousands of people,” Siller said Friday.

The foundation is committed to remembering 9/11 and passing that memory on to younger Americans who are too young to remember it themselves. That’s why this year, Siller and others from the foundation traveled the country in a Steel Across America tour, transporting a 21-foot, 16,900-pound World Trade Center steel beam more than 10,500 miles through nearly 40 stops across the country and back stopping in more than 21 states.

“For over four months, the steel has been a gathering place for communities to remember the events of September 11th, to honor first responders and veterans, and to ensure that a new generation understands the significance of what happened 25 years ago,” reads a foundation press release.

The tour stopped at military installations, firehouses, memorials and other notable sites, including Mount Rushmore, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the White House Ellipse in Washington. It’s part of a larger ongoing effort that includes a K-12 curriculum for teaching on 9/11 and a mobile exhibit that travels the country to educate America’s youth about 9/11.

“Look, a third of America wasn’t even born 25 years ago. We have to teach them,” Siller said. “Freedom is not free, and we’re going to make sure that we teach America that we have this great country — the best that ever existed, by far and away…. just because of these men and women that are willing to protect us.”

The foundation has also committed to paying off the mortgages or providing mortgage-free homes to an additional 55 families of fallen first responders in honor of the 25th anniversary. The families represent 18 states, with 27 from the New York metropolitan area, including New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Fifteen of the fallen first responders died from 9/11-related illnesses.

Of walking the route of Stephen’s last steps 25 years later, Siller said it was “something I will never be able to fully put into words.”

“Stephen ran toward danger to help people he didn’t even know. We are here today to honor him, the 343, and every hero who has continued to serve in the years since.”

Hundreds of people joined the walk Friday morning, finishing at FDNY firehouse 10 and placing roses at the FDNY Memorial Wall, a 56-foot-long bronze bas-relief memorial honoring the 343 firefighters who died on September 11, 2001.