On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, 34-year-old New York City firefighter Stephen Siller had just completed an overnight shift when a call over the scanner stopped him cold.
His son, Stephen Siller Jr., told ABC News that his father “immediately knew something was awry,” prompting him to head straight back to his firehouse in Brooklyn.
When he arrived, Siller Jr. said, his father discovered that his entire unit had already been dispatched to the World Trade Center. He loaded his gear into his truck and began making his way toward Lower Manhattan, but by then, every entry point into Manhattan had been shut down.
Unable to drive farther, he parked near the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, strapped roughly 60 pounds of equipment onto his back and ran through the tunnel toward the South Tower of the World Trade Center, Siller Jr. said.
Stephen Siller was one of 343 New York City Fire Department members killed in the Sept. 11 attacks. He left behind his close-knit siblings, his wife, Sally, and five children, including Stephen Jr., who was just 9 months old.
Now 25, Siller Jr. has no personal memories of his father, but he has devoted himself to preserving the memory of those lost on 9/11. Ahead of the 25th anniversary of the terror attacks, he spent four months taking a 16,900-pound steel beam from the World Trade Center to communities across the country, hoping the physical presence of history would help people remember, understand and reflect.
The Steel Across America campaign gives people the chance to “put their hand on that steel and feel the loss and sacrifice that was made that day — the sacrifice of first responders and their loss, the loss of innocent people who just went to work,” Stephen Siller Jr.’s uncle, Frank Siller, told ABC News.
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