CALHOUN — This past Sept. 11 marked 22 years since the 2001 terrorist attacks that toppled the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers in New York City and shook the nation. Frank Siller, a Staten Island, New York, native, remembers that day vividly.
“After the towers were hit, I had my family gathering at my house,” Siller said. “When the first tower came down, I was sitting there with my mother-in-law, who was sitting right next to me. I said, ‘Nancy, I think I just lost my brother.'”
Siller, the chairman and CEO of the Tunnel to Towers Foundation headquartered in New York City, spoke as a special guest during a veterans ceremony at Mohawk Industries’ company headquarters in Calhoun on Wednesday.
The event also celebrated the 10-year anniversary of a partnership between Mohawk and Tunnel to Towers, an organization that offers mortgage-free homes to Gold Star and fallen first responder families, and builds specialized smart homes for catastrophically-injured U.S. veterans.
‘Every day was a gift’
Siller detailed the story of his brother Stephen, a New York City firefighter who lost his life serving others on 9/11.
“On the day of Sept. 11, 2001, he had just finished his tour in (Brooklyn’s Squad 1) when he got the call,” Frank Siller said. “He turned his truck around and got his gear and went to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. The tunnel is almost two miles long and it was closed for security reasons.”
Siller said that did not stop his brother from the “call that he had to do.”
“What do our first responders do? They don’t run away from their call to duty, they go right toward the danger and that’s exactly what he did,” Frank Siller said.
With 60 pounds of gear strapped to his back, Stephen Siller traveled through the tunnel to reach the Twin Towers and assist with rescue efforts.
“It’s remarkable that I am here today (at this event),” Frank Siller said, holding back slight tears. “My brother Stephen would have been 57 today. He died when he was 34-years-old and he left behind a wife and five kids.”
Siller said Stephen was the youngest of seven siblings. Their parents, Mae and George Siller, passed away when Stephen was very young.
“By 10-years-old, he was really an orphan,” Frank Siller said. “But he was blessed in that he had much older siblings to raise him. He landed on his feet at a very early age; he really wanted to serve.”
Siller said his brother knew how important life was and that “every day was a gift.”
“When you lose your parents at an early age, you realize things happen,” he said. “So, he wanted to be a firefighter.”
Frank Siller said sitting in front of the television on that fateful day and seeing the collapsed South Tower, he didn’t realize what his brother went through to get to the World Trade Center.
“But I knew he was going to find a way to get there,” Siller said.
He recalled receiving a phone call not long afterward from another firefighter who lived two doors away from his brother who was at Ground Zero.
After talking about the situation, the firefighter told Siller words he never wanted to hear: “Nobody’s coming home.”
“That little boy who lost his parents at 10-years-old, that little boy who fell in love with a beautiful girl when he got older and had five children, is gone,” he said. “And it’s a moment I will never forget.”
Wanting to ‘do good’
“When we found out what Stephen did, we wanted to honor his sacrifice,” Frank Siller said. “We didn’t know what we were going to do, but we knew we wanted to honor all of those first responders who sacrificed their lives. We wanted to remember him and we wanted to do good and never forget.”
Siller said he soon found out that the first-ever surviving quadruple amputee from a U.S. war, Brendan Marrocco, lived close by in Staten Island, and it was like “God sent us a message on what to do.”
Siller visited Marrocco in the hospital and built the first smart home, which is designed to accommodate the specific needs of disabled veterans and first responders, as part of the newly-christened Tunnel to Towers Foundation.
The organization’s smart homes include features such as automated doors and lighting, wider halls and doorways, special showers for wheelchair accommodation, automatic door openers and central heating and air conditioning systems that can be controlled by tablets in order to give recipients an individualized and independent living space.
“They deserve it,” Siller said. “It went on from there, because we had no choice but to help. When God puts you on a path, and it is the right path, you have no choice but to do the right thing. And that’s what we decided to do.”
Siller recounted the events in 2014 in which two New York City police officers were shot and killed.
“When they got shot, their families were worried about how they were going to stay in their house,” he said.
That led Siller and the Tunnel to Towers Foundation to offer a program that involves paying off the mortgage for families of fallen first responders.
“Like at the beginning, I didn’t know where we were going to find the money,” he said. “But I believe so much in the goodness and kindness of Americans. And in 10 days, we not only raised enough money to pay off their mortgages, but we renovated their houses.”
Siller said Tunnel to Towers now promises to pay off the mortgages of any family of a fallen first responder in America.
“Over the years we’ve evolved, and 10 years ago I first came here (to Calhoun),” Siller said about the partnership with Mohawk. “Little did we know that over 80 (smart) houses would be put together (in that time frame). You guys supplied the flooring and it’s beautiful.”
Continued partnership and a new ‘promise’
During the last 10 years Mohawk has supplied flooring for 80 smart homes built by Tunnel to Towers, with the majority hardwood flooring due to wheelchair accessibility.
Siller said the work between Mohawk and Tunnel to Towers isn’t ending any time soon.
“As we speak, we have another 100 houses that we’re doing,” he said. “We have maybe 50 under construction and another 50 where we have bought the property and we’re getting it zoned and working with the architects to get going. The work is endless.”
Siller also provided information about another goal the organization has recently worked to achieve.
“Last Thursday in Houston, Texas, we opened up the first village for homeless veterans (known as the Tunnel to Towers Veterans Village),” he detailed. “It’s a 161-room hotel and we renovated it into apartments for homeless veterans, some transitional and some permanent housing. They have their own bed, their own TV, their own kitchen, their own shower. Many of them haven’t had that in so many years.”
To end the ceremony, Siller told of the “absolute promise” that Tunnel to Towers makes.
“We’re going to take care of our catastrophically-injured service members, first responders and veterans,” he said. “And the families of every first responder who dies in the line of duty. The need will be there forever. Police officers give their life almost every day of the year.
“But now we’re making another promise,” he continued. “That we’re going to eradicate homelessness amongst our veterans. There’s nearly 50,000 homeless veterans and I know that we can do it.”
Siller said this year they’ve helped 3,000 homeless veterans into their own apartments across the country.
“We have a lot of work that we need to continue to do,” he said. “I am so grateful that (Mohawk has) been able to help us for the last decade to accomplish all of these houses, because I can assure you that neither one of us alone can get anything done. But together, I know that we are going to take care of every homeless vet(eran) and that is going to be our new promise.”