He Couldn’t Save His Brother on 9/11. He Spent the Next 25 Years Saving Others.

0:00Coleman Hughes:Do you hear that? That sound, right? That means that summer's officially here. It means that grown adults just sprint into the street for a frozen dessert shaped like a cartoon. But this summer, Mint Mobile has a better treat. Every plan, including unlimited, is$15 a month. And unlike ice cream, it won't drip down your wrist or look nothing like the picture. Does anyone have any cash? Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy.

0:29Coleman Hughes:C-Terms. Welcome to another episode of Conversations with Coleman. Today is the 25th anniversary of the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. That's why my guest is Frank Siller. Frank is the chairman and CEO of the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, which he and his family founded after his younger brother, FDNY firefighter Stephen Siller, was killed while responding to the September 11th attacks. Stephen ran through the closed Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, carrying roughly 60 pounds of firefighting gear to reach the Twin Towers, and like many other brave first responders on that dark day, lost his life trying to save the lives of others.

1:11Coleman Hughes:Under Frank Siller's leadership, Tunnel to Towers has grown into a major national charity providing mortgage-free homes and other assistance to the families that first responders leave behind when they make the ultimate sacrifice. Frank also has a memoir called Let Us Do Good, which we discuss in this podcast. If you're moved by anything you hear in this episode, please consider going to www.t2t.org and making a donation. So without further ado, Frank Siller.

1:50Coleman Hughes:Do you hear that? That sound, right? That means that summer's officially here. It means that grown adults just sprint into the street for a frozen dessert shaped like a cartoon. But this summer, Mint Mobile has a better treat. Every plan, including unlimited, is$15 a month. And unlike ice cream, it won't drip down your wrist or look nothing like the picture. Does anyone have any cash? Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. A front payment of$45 for three months, $90 for six months, or$180 for 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy.

2:19Coleman Hughes:See terms. Okay, Frank Siller, thanks so much for coming on my show. Thank you so much for having me. So we are speaking, this episode will come out on the 25th anniversary of 9-11. And you are the perfect person to commemorate this moment with, because you have an extremely moving memoir called Let Us Do Good, which interweaves the story of your late heroic brother Stephen, and broader reflections on having lost a family member and a hero on 9-11 as a firefighter, and how you and your siblings turned that into something positive. And so I'm very happy, indeed honored, to be talking with you right now.

3:09Coleman Hughes:and give my audience first a sense of who you are. And I'm sure you've told his story many times, but a little bit of a sense of who your brother Stephen was and what was his connection to 9-11. So thank you for giving me this opportunity on the 25th anniversary of 9-11 to honor my brother, but not just him, but so many other great heroes that perished that day and those who perished ever since. So my brother, Stephen, York City firefighter, on September 11, 2001, was on his way home. He just finished his night tour in Squad 1 in Brooklyn. It's an elite firehouse. And he was training. He used to tell me, Frank, we're going to get hit again, you know, because what happened in 93, you know, one of the towers were hit.

4:03And they knew what many other people knew. Eventually, we were going to hit again. But we were going to play golf on September 11, 2001. The Four Silla Brothers. Stephen was the youngest of seven of siblings. When Stephen was born, for the listeners to get an understanding about my brother, when Stephen was born, I was the closest in age. I was 14 years old. And my oldest brother was 24 years old. And there was a lot of people in between. So you're the second youngest and there's a 14-year age gap. Exactly. And from the oldest, 24 years. And so when he was born, he was our little miracle, to say the least.

4:49And now, fast forward eight plus years later, dad dies suddenly. He's in for a minor operation, has an embolism, and dies. and I remember how upset my brother was and he kept on saying, mom, you're going to be okay though. You're going to be all right. You're going to be here. You're going to be here. And of course she assured him that she would be, but we don't know what tomorrow brings. None of us do. And a year and a half later, my mom died. So at 10 years old, my brother Stephen was orphaned, but he was fortunate that he had six older siblings. It's like he gained three more fathers and three more mothers.

5:29And of course, she can never replace She's a real mom and dad, but we did as good a job as one could possibly do. And he grows up to be this outrageous human being. I think the story of my brother is that he was a hero in some ways before he made his heroic run through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel on 9-11. On the way he handled the fact that he lost both parents. You lose one parent when you're a young kid, a young boy, you lose your father. It's traumatic. It's going to change your life forever. You lose both. You can't even comprehend it. Most people aren't orphaned at 10 years old. And he has a crazy adolescence.

6:15He comes out the other side. He lived primarily, my brother Russ, in Rockville Center. We all grew up on Staten Island. He moved back to live with me on Staten Island. I never left. I've been on Staten Island all 73 years of my life. And he moves back in with me at 18 years old, goes through a crazy period, lands on his feet, gets reintroduced to the little girl around the corner when he used to walk to school with her, you know, in the first, second, third grade, you know, fourth grade until, you know, my parents died. And they fall in love and they get married. And here he is on top of the world, becomes a firefighter.

6:55The dream of his that he always wanted to be was a firefighter. And now him, he has five kids. He's got five beautiful kids. He has everything he ever wanted in life. The love of his family, love of his wife, his own children, and the brotherhood of being part of New York City Firefighter, the greatest, you know, fire department in the world. And he had a call to duty. He was on his way home, as I said, to play golf with us. Heard on his radio scanner that the towers were hit. turned his truck around back to his firehouse they already responded he got his gear put it in his truck drove to the mouth of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel closed for security reasons strapped that gear on his back 60 pounds ran through that tunnel up West Street into the South Tower and up those stairs and while doing so gave up his life while saving others and you know he became our hero but many other people's heroes as well

7:51Coleman Hughes:yeah it's an incredible story one thing I really liked about your memoir was how it's a portrait of a particular time and place and you are painting this world of Staten Island in I guess the 60s and 70s and part of the 50s even part of the 50s yeah early rock and roll you talked about getting into early rock and roll and one thing I noticed is just how many times you're introducing someone in your neighborhood and they're a Vietnam War veteran. It's like probably like 30 different times throughout the book. What do you think was the impact of growing up around so many Vietnam War vets? Well, it was an era that was, so when I was 18 years old, they had the lottery, 1971, they had the lottery.

8:46My number was 300 and something, so I was never called upon. But a lot of people in my neighborhood were. They were a year or two older than me. My brother George ended up joining the Air Force. My brother-in-law, Bob Vogt, God rest his soul, he just passed away. He was in the Army. He was spent in Vietnam and became a port authority cop afterwards. My brother-in-law, Ed Hannon, he was in the Army, came back, you know, and all this. So I knew a lot of people who did serve. You know, my father, World War II, my uncle, Battle of the Bulge, you know. It was around us, police officers, firefighters in my family.

9:35My mother's side of the family, you know, they're not only carpenters, but they were cops and firefighters. So many of my cousins were in Vietnam. My cousin George was in Vietnam, and one of my cousins were a police officer or firefighter. So we're surrounded with service, and my family and my friends, and all of them, you know, some came back different, you know what I mean, because of what happened. And we know that America didn't treat our veterans the right way after Vietnam, you know, when they came back and they served and they risked their lives and so many times gave up their lives. and you know it's different today and I thank God for that because we respect most people do at least respect the fact you know when somebody's serving our country they they owe our gratitude they owe our gratitude and and we do that at the foundation so it was remarkable it was gave us such great structure and understanding that America the beautiful is only beautiful because of those who are willing to sacrifice, you know, so, so much for us.

10:42And, you know, growing up, my parents, very spiritual, very, very, very spiritual. We had, you know, we had, you know, very poor, we were poor, you know, growing up, but nobody cared. Nobody cared because everybody was poor. Everyone around us didn't have much. And who had five kids, who had seven kids, who had nine, you know, nine kids, 11 kids. It was very common back then. And it was, it was beautiful. But my parents gave us something, and I write about this a lot in the book. They gave us something that cannot, it's just so much more valuable than just common knowledge or that you could study and do good in school or, you know, that you have a certain talent.

11:26They taught us about serving, about being there for each other and being there for others. and we always followed the teachings of St. Francis of Assisi because that's what we did. And he said, brothers and sisters, while we have time, let us do good. Hence the name of the book is Let Us Do Good. But those lessons were taught to all the siblings, but no more than Stephen because he did the ultimate act of service when he gave up his life.

11:57Coleman Hughes:You told a story in the book about getting your hands on$26, and it was a big deal. Can you tell that story? Sure. So I'm in the second grade, I'm eight years old, have my first Holy Communion. And like I said before, we were pretty poor. And so we never had extra money. If you got a nickel for something, it was good. It was something special. uh and anyway my parents decided to have some people over the uh our house afterwards for you know a little get together and but it ended up being a big get together and people were handing me envelopes all day and i never got an envelope in my life um and uh and i started to open them up and inside there were dollar bills and i kept on piling them up and finally at one point i start counting them you know i i start counting it over and over again i said 26 dollars it was like 26 and I said, oh my God, I'm rich.

12:51I felt like I was rich. I'm going around, a couple of my friends, I got$26, I got$26. My mother says, put that away, put that away. Don't do that, don't take that out. Of course, I kept on doing it. I kept on taking it out and counting it because I never had a dollar in my pocket. Eight years old, never had a dollar in my pocket and now I have 26. until finally my father said, Frank, put that away. He put it in a drawer. And then afterwards, everybody leaves, and my parents say, come on, we're going to go for a ride. I'm only eight years old, but I knew I was in trouble for being disrespectful or counting that money and being in front of other people like that.

13:38And we're driving. My mother says, we know this family that is in need, And I couldn't believe it. My head was, they're going to take this money from me. They're going to take this money from me. I was like, destroyed. I'm sitting in the back of the car. I'm saying, oh my God, my riches are gone. And then my father says, yeah, you know, it'd be nice to help them. And my mom says, yeah, wouldn't it be nice if we gave that family in need half of what you have? And I was like, so overwhelmed. happy. I was so happy because they weren't taking it all. They thought I was being magnanimous. And I said, yes, yes, we should, yes, we should do that.

14:21Now I'm saying to myself, you know, I give up$13, you know, you know, and I keep the other 13 and, and, um, it, uh, it wasn't, uh, lost on me later on in life. And I know what family it went to. Um, and it was very small, didn't change their lives other than somebody cares. And maybe they helped them one, probably small little way. But the lesson taught by my parents was profound in that I don't remember what I did with the $13 I spent, but I've never forgotten about the$13 I gave away. And that was a lesson taught at eight years old.

14:58Coleman Hughes:That struck me when you said that you were poor, but you didn't know you were poor. You didn't feel deprived because everyone was poor, right? And this is, to me, a deep insight about what makes humans, human beings happy and what makes human beings suffer. And my mother would say the same thing. She grew up in the South Bronx, very poor in the 60s and 70s. but she said she actually did not know she was poor until, you know, eventually at some point in life, she, she saw what a wealthy person's house like looked like. Right. And, and I've heard this from other people that grew up poor as well.

15:40Coleman Hughes:The great writer Thomas Sowell grew up in the 1930s and 40s, um, in, in, uh, North Carolina. And he, again, he, he grew up in a, in a house without electricity and hot water. But even he did not think of himself as poor until he had something else to compare it to. And so he didn't wake up saying, oh man, like, oh, sucks to be poor again today. He woke up saying, wow, isn't life great? Isn't life amazing? I can't wait. What am I going to do today? Listen, I had a park right down the street from my house. We had the largest backyard it could possibly be. Club Lakes Park. We'd down there all day, every day, playing in the brook, climbing trees, playing football, baseball.

16:24I mean, we had the best childhood that anyone could possibly have. You know, my brother George and I were close in age. We'd down there all the time. My friends. I mean, it was great. It was great. But, you know, for us as a family, we were so close because we had each other. Sundays were big in my family, Sunday dinner. So I write in a book, my brother Russ goes into seminary, and he's with these seminarians. And my mom would make this big, lived on Staten Island. There was a St. Francis Seminary on Staten Island. My brother was starting to be a priest. But all these kids would be coming from all over the United States to be in the seminary.

17:05And my mom would make this big, big, I mean, big pot of spaghetti, a tomato sauce with sausage and meatballs in it. We never got a sausage and meatball. We never had, the kids, the silly kids, we never had a sausage meatball, but my mother brought them up for these other kids. And we'd have to carry all this in. And somehow or another, she put enough money together to buy a dozen eclairs or whatever she bought. And we'd carry it in. We weren't even allowed to have a meatball or a sausage. And we had all carried it in there because, once again, she wanted to serve other kids. And not that she didn't worry about us because we fed.

17:43But on a Sunday in our house, we did have tomato sauce all the time, but it was just spaghetti. You know, we didn't have the meat with it. I remember as an adult having dinner with somebody one time over my house and I made spaghetti. And they said, where's the chicken or where's the sausage? I said, what do you mean? You know, because that wasn't the way I lived and brought up. I didn't care. I didn't care. So my parents instilled something in us, Coleman, that I put in the book, no shiny object could ever give you the joy that you're looking for. The only thing in life you could do is service and taking care of each other and taking care of others.

18:22And that lesson has carried the Silla family through. Because when we found out what Stephen did on that day, on 9-11, if you don't mind, I'll talk about 9-11. Yes, please. Yeah. so that that day when steven was supposed to be at my house meet at my house for for uh for golf um obviously my brother george came into my kitchen and said turn the tv on i didn't even know the uh the north tower was hit um and we turned it on and while we were watching we saw the south tower uh you know the plane fly flew into the south tower i remember my brother george took his hat off and slammed it down and said some profanity and because we knew we were under attack.

19:04You knew it then. You didn't know it before. And he leaves. He goes to his place of business. Nobody knew what to do at that point. We knew we weren't going to play golf. That's for damn sure. My brother Russ went back down to my sister-in-law's house, Sally, who lived a couple of miles or so away from me, a couple of minutes. And I was watching, like everybody was watching, And at 9.59, which is not a time that maybe a lot of people even know that time, every single day when I see that time, I think of something like 9.59 and 9.11 every day of my life. Since when I see that on a clock, it has a different meaning to me than maybe most.

19:46But that's when the South Tower came down. And I remember my mother-in-law was up at my house at that time. And I turned to her and said, Nancy, I think I just lost my brother. Not knowing how he got there. I didn't know that he got his gear and drove to the tunnel and ran through the tunnel. Nobody knew what was going on there. Bridges were all closed, the tunnel. And then I started to drive around to different firehouses trying to get information on what happened to Stephen. They were put in this list of missing firefighters. and the first place I went to, which was a nephew of my brother-in-law was in Vietnam, Artie Evans at this firehouse.

20:27He said, Frank, we don't have any information. I went to this other firehouse, Rescue 5, big company, elite company and they told me they were putting together this list of missing firefighters. They didn't have much information other than I know Stephen wasn't answering the phone. I was calling him numerous times. Got my family, called them all up. I said, come on, let's come over to my house because although the day was bad, I felt like it could be a lot worse for the Silla family. And we're sitting in my living room in the afternoon, and I get a phone call from a firefighter, Richie Obermeyer, who lived several doors away from my brother on Staten Island.

21:05And he called me up. He says, Frank, it's really bad down here. And I said, yeah, Rich, we're all sitting in my living room. We could see it. It's terrible. He goes, no, Frank, it's really bad. I said, Rich, I can't even imagine what you guys are going through down there. And I could see it's really bad. He goes, no, Frank, you don't understand. Nobody's coming home.

21:29And to think that little boy that was orphaned at age 10, that I had to walk in the other room and tell my siblings and my kids that their brother is not coming home, their uncle's not coming home. I walked in there and I told them the phone call. And my sister Regina let us a shriek that I'll never forget. And she goes, not Stephen. You know, not Stephen. You know, if it was any of us, it would be upsetting. But it's not Stephen, not this kid that went through so much as a little boy. Now that his five kids aren't going to have their father. It was so painful. We were literally on our knees. And we said a prayer.

22:20And we got up. And we drove over to Sally's house. And we promised to ourselves and to her, of course, but amongst each other, that we would do anything that we could possibly do, not just at that time, but forever. just like we did for Stephen forever, you know, when he lost our parents. And we just couldn't believe it happened. But when we found out what he did, we were so proud. Oh, my God, who does that? You know, I know a lot of people were off that day and found a way to get this. I know Stephen in many ways is not unique, but what he did was very unique. and I remember saying to Sally, Sally, can we please, I talked to her, that's Stephen's wife.

23:10I said, this is maybe a week and a half, two weeks after 9-11. I said, can we start a foundation to recognize what Stephen did so your kids know that their father was a hero and she said yes. And then I talked to my siblings and we started a foundation. And Coleman, here's the thing. Remember when I said, my mom and dad taught us to do that little bit of help, that little bit of help that we, that we, that I did with the$13, you know, which made very little difference in that person's life, but made a difference. All we wanted to do as a, as a foundation was that it was a little bit of help, was a little bit of help.

23:48We wanted to make sure we honor the sacrifice that Stephen and all those great heroes made that day and the 2 ,977 souls that were taken from us. And we wanted to make sure we never forget what happened. That was the mission. That was the mission. And we were going to give$1 ,000 scholarships to kids that lost a parent. Not 9-11 kids. This was because this we didn't do for six months or a year later until after the first run that we decided to do that. And for$1 ,000 for four years, kids going from the eighth grade into high school, if you lost a parent or parents because Stephen was orphaned.

24:21That's what we were going to do. We didn't have to raise a lot of money. We just wanted to make sure we never forgot. And from that, I'll go into the other miracles that happened that put us on a path that's been an incredible journey.

24:35Coleman Hughes:Yeah. Before we get to that, I just want to say, everyone thinks that they would run into the burning building and sacrifice themselves to save others. But most of us never get tested. And you really don't know how you're going to react. in the case of someone like Stephen, you do know because he was tested and he met the moment in the bravest possible way 343 firefighters 60 police officers with a port authority, NYPD and three courts officers and many many other people story of Wells Crowther, the man in the red bandana in the book, I got so many stories of great heroes because once again the beauty and one of the successful first runs we had which was September 29, 2002, almost on the first anniversary of 9-11, we had the banners of a flag held for every firefighter and first responder who died that day.

25:33It wasn't just about Stephen the first run. To me, it was about Stephen because it's personal. We started the foundation and the run, which is always the last Sunday in September. We retraced what Stephen did that day. And I'll be doing that on September 11th this year, by the way, with a piece of steel. Once again, I got a lot of information to give you. But no, it's remarkable that we remember everybody. And that's the beauty of it. Now, when you come out of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, we have banners with the pictures of all those first responders who died on 9-11. And then the 7 ,000 plus names of those hold by ROTC cadets.

26:14They're holding the names and pictures of all these heroes that died in the global war of terror. Think about that. It's almost a mile long when you come out of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel of people who gave their lives, Coleman, for you and I and so many other people on that fateful day. You know, in 2009, the first ever quadruple amputee to ever survive any war was from Staten Island, Sergeant Brendan Morocco. Think of lost four limbs above the elbow and legs above the knees. and I went down with a group, a couple of us from the foundation went down to visit him at Walter Reed. When I was down here, his father asked me to talk to him and while talking to him, I said, Brenda, can we build you a home?

26:57This is Staten Island kid. I'm from Staten Island. All of us were born on Staten Island. First quadruple amputee, you'd ever survive. Can we build you a home? The Tunnel to Towers, can we build you a mortgage-free home? And it's a long story, but he accepted. He humbly accepted and we built a home and we're building it. This smart home technology guy was coming a couple times a week and telling me we should put this technology in and that technology. I said, put it in, put it in. We built him a smart home. You could work it off an iPad. The cabinet's lower. The sink lowers the stove so you could cook something.

27:33You don't have to ask somebody else. Get something out of the cabinet because it comes down. I mean, the state-of-the-art bathroom. He could take care of himself. Doesn't have to ask somebody to come in and take care of him. Could you imagine the most independent people in the world asking for people to help? So we built the first home, and that changed the foundation forever. That one situation, that one visit down to Walter Reed put us on a mission that we're so proud that we're on. Because I kept on going down. I met four other quadruple amputees over the next six months. There were four others that survived the battlefield.