In 1986, Ronald Bucca was a member of Rescue 1 of the FDNY when his dedication to proper preparation saved his life. Bucca fell from five stories up off a West Side tenement while trying to assist one of his fellow firefighters. As he was plummeting towards the ground, his backpack caught on a metal conduit, which partially broke his fall and which spun him face down. He landed on his hands and feet, as if he was some human cat hybrid. He took one hell of a beating, so much so that he could have retired on three-quarter pension. He did not. It took one year but he made it back to Rescue One. The legend of "the Flying Fireman" was born.
He was promoted to Fire Marshal in 1992. On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, he was at the Bureau of Fire Investigations building on Lafayette Street when the North Tower was struck at 8:46 am. He immediately responded to the site. He arrived as the South Tower was hit at 9:03 am.
Bucca, not a big man (5'9" and 160 pounds), was in excellent physical condition. He ran several miles daily. His instincts carried him up into the South Tower to look for survivors and to help get people out of the building. He and Battalion Chief Orio Palmer checked in from the 78th floor moments prior to its collapse.
Ronald Bucca was forty-seven at the time of his death. Prior to serving and protecting the people of New York City as a member of the FDNY, he served this nation as a member of the United States Army. He and his wife, Eve, were the proud parents of a son, Ronald, Jr., and a daughter, Jessica.
At age 34, Vice-President for Tax Operations at Fiduciary Trust Company International Christopher Seton Cramer was already looking forward to retirement. Better than that, he was already counting down the days. On his 35th birthday, which was just three hundred and seventeen days from September 11, 2001, he intended to take a buyout and retire to the Florida Keys, where he could devote his energy and his time towards his dream of "living on an island, fishing, drinking beer, and growing fat."
Christopher Seton Cramer
His fiance, Tracy Pereless recounted that he had shared with her that eleven years of driving more than two hundred miles round-trip every day between his home in Ocean County, New Jersey and his job in New York City had taken its toll. He lived on a lagoon, which he only got to enjoy on weekends. He very much was looking forward to being able to enjoy life on the water full-time.
In addition to his fiance, Tracy, Mr. Cramer was survived by his parents, Walter and Lynne, his three brothers, Keith, Marc, and Walter, and his sister, Susan. The Brothers Cramer, Christopher and Walter, worked together at Fidicuary Trust's offices on the South Tower's 90th floor. However, that morning, Walter was running late getting to work, which saved his life.
Almost unbelievably, Mr. Cramer's former wife, Anne Marie Martino-Cramer, also worked at Fiduciary Trust. Sadly, she too was already in the company's offices when United Airlines Flight 175 was crashed into the South Tower at 9:03 a.m. She died as well on that terrible Tuesday morning.
Anne Marie Martino-Cramer
Ms. Martino-Cramer, a tax specialist at Fiduciary Trust, was forty-seven at the time of her death. She worked for Fiduciary Trust for twenty-seven years, adored the people with whom she worked, and was committed to the firm. It was that commitment in fact that had resulted in her being in the office that morning. Although she had planned to be on vacation, she pushed it back to October, 2001 for work-related reasons. Her mother, Mildred Martino, with whom she lived in Staten Island, survived her, as did her older sister, Patricia Nilsen, her twin brother, Anthony, and several nephews and nieces.
On what tragically proved to be the final weekend of her too-young life, Gertrude "Trudi" Alagerocelebrated her 37th birthday with her fiance, Peter Walther. As the couple walked together to the subway from their apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side, she told him, "I am the luckiest woman in the world."
Ms. Alagero and Mr. Walther were to be married in Boston on January 5, 2002. Unfortunately, on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, at 8:46 a.m. Ms. Alagero, a senior vice president at Marsh Private Client Services, a division of Marsh & McLennan, was at work on the 94th floor of the World Trade Center's North Tower when the murderous cowards who hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 crashed it into the building.
Her brother, Paul, said that he considered himself lucky to have spent thirty-seven great years with his sister. He described her as a person who enjoyed every facet of her life. Peter Walther described her as being as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside.
The 9/11 Memorial and Museum's web site informs its visitors of the sad fact that almost 3,000 names are inscribed on the Memorial's panels. In a better world, it would not exist for its existence would be unnecessary. Far too many times a day we confront reminders of the fact that the world we occupy is the best world we have but it is by no means a better one. If you have never been to lower Manhattan to visit the 9/11 Memorial or Museum then might I commend either or both to you. It is an experience that stays with you long after your visit has ended.
Igor Zukelman holds the distinction of being the last name, alphabetically, inscribed on the Memorial. His name is located on Panel 43 around the South Pool. At the time of his death on September 11, 2001, Igor Zukelman was just twenty-nine years old. He had come to America from Ukraine in 1992. Within his first decade in the United States, he married, became a father (his son Allan was just three when Mr. Zukelman died), and became a United States citizen, which he did in 2001, just a few short months before his death.
He worked for Fiduciary Trust Company, which had its offices on the South Tower's 97th floor. When hijackers flew United Airlines 175 into the southwest face of the South Tower at 9:03 a.m., an impact hole spanning from the 78th floor to the 84th floor was created. Only a very small number of people at work on the South Tower's floors above the plane's point of impact survived.
On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, John J. Chada, Manassas, Virginia, was at work at the Pentagon when American Airlines Flight 77 was crashed into the building by the murderous cowards who had hijacked it. He was fifty-five years old. Two days shy, in fact, of celebrating his fifty-sixth birthday.
He was a civilian employee. He worked for the Department of Defense Information Management Support Center as an administrative assistant. Before embracing civilian life he had served this nation as a member of the United States Navy and as a member of the United States Army. He served two tours in Vietnam. He retired from the Army as Sergeant First Class John J. Chada.
John J Chada and his wife of thirty years, Ginger, had one daughter, Tammy Merritt, and two grandchildren. On November 20, 2001 he was buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors.
Approximately 650 Cantor Fitzgerald employees died on Tuesday,
September 11, 2001 when hijacked
American Airlines Flight 11 was used as a missile and was fired into the North
Tower of the World Trade Center. American 11 struck the North Tower at 8:46:40 AM Eastern
time, a few floors below
Cantor Fitzgerald's offices, which
were located on Floor 101 through 105.
Alok Agarwal, just thirty-seven years young, had emigrated to the United
States from India in 1997. Mr. Agarwal was a computer technician and when
he first came to America, neither his wife, Shakali, nor his young son, Ankush,
came with him. Shafali followed a few months later - after he was settled
and had started to earn an income. Ankush, however, was not able to join
his parents. He was beset by health problems - such as a chronic fever
and cough. He remained behind in India, living with relatives.
Mr. Agarwal was the sole breadwinner in his household, which meant
that when Shafali made her annual trek home to India to see their little boy, Alok could not accompany her. He could not travel back to India to spend time with Ankush. He was not
able to take time off from his position as a Senior Programmer Analyst at
Cantor Fitzgerald to join her. He lamented to his wife just how hard it
was on him during their time apart. He missed her.
Roughly three
weeks prior to Tuesday, September 11, 2001, he dropped Shafali off at the airport
for what turned out to be the final time. He never saw his wife - or his
young son - again.
Six days after Mr. Agarwal was among those killed at the World Trade Center, his widow, Shafali, returned to the United States. She flew back here hoping against hope to find her husband. She remained in the United States until January, 2002, at which time she returned to India without him.
Not only was Alok Agarwal his wife's emotional tie to America, he was her legal tie too. Shafali did not work in the United States. After he died, her dependent visa was no longer valid. She and Ankush ultimately received short-term visitor's visas. However, when they expired on November 20, 2002, the family's ability to remain here in America did too...
...not quite the
ending that Alok Agarwal had envisioned to his American dream.
A testament, perhaps,
to the inherent inequity of life.
A lesson that the Agarwal family has learned in the hardest of all possible ways.
A lifetime ago, Nickelodeon aired a British cartoon, Danger Mouse. Occasionally "DM" used to be coupled with an
animated short entitled Banana Man, of which every episode began with the narrator's declaration that, "Eric is Banana Man!"
Only within the jurisdictional
limits of his animated world was young Eric actually a super hero. In the
concrete and mortar world, there was no Banana Man.
Fortunately, in the real world there
was a young man named Welles Remy Crowther.
Young Mr. Crowther was slightly more than two years removed from having
graduated from Boston College with a B.A. in Economics and four letters as a
member of the Eagles' lacrosse team when he reported for work on Tuesday,
September 11, 2001 at Sandler, O'Neill and Partners, LP. Sandler O'Neill
was located in the South Tower of the World Trade Center - on the 104th floor.
An incredible athlete and a bright young man, Mr. Crowther had a big
future. He also had a well-developed sense of community and selflessness.
Born and raised in Nyack, N.Y., he became a junior member of Empire Hook
& Ladder, Company No. 1 in Upper Nyack, New York at age sixteen and a
full-fledged member of the Company at age eighteen.
Welles Remy Crowther, slightly less
than four months past his twenty-fourth birthday, died on September 11, 2001; one of sixty-four victims from Sandler O'Neill. It took a
little more than six months after that awful day for his body to be recovered
from the rubble that had once been the South Tower. And it took
approximately two months thereafter for his family, who grieved him then and
grieves him still, to come to learn that Welles Crowther lived the final
minutes of his life with same generous spirit and the same drive and
determination as he had lived every other one of them.
On May 26, 2002 the New York Times
ran a story in which survivors from the South Tower credited their survival to
a young mystery man. He was "the man in the red bandanna" who
appeared out of nowhere in the Sky Lobby on the 78th floor of the South Tower
at or about the time that the South Tower was struck by the second plane.
According to eyewitnesses, nothing identified him as a "Wolf of Wall
Street". He was not wearing a jacket and tie. Rather, he had
on a t-shirt and he had a red bandanna over his mouth and nose, which permitted
him to function amid the smoke and the swirling debris.
People who bore witness to what
transpired on that terrible morning described what he did:
This man organized a rescue effort
on the floors high above where the official rescue workers were able to reach.
He called for fire extinguishers, he found and directed dazed and confused
victims to the only stairwell that was open for escape, and he carried a woman
down to the 61st floor, then returned to the 78th floor to rescue more people.
He turned back up once again after bringing the second group of survivors down.
Eyewitnesses report that the man spoke calmly, with authority, and was
obviously well trained. He is reported to have saved many lives that day.
Not everyone has a
"thing", a habit or trait with which he is readily identified.
Welles Crowther did. When his mother read and/or learned of the New York
Times piece, she thought immediately of her son, giving consideration to where
his body had been found, which was alongside FDNY firefighters and paramedics
near a Command Center on the ground floor of the South Tower, and the fact that
he always carried a red bandanna in his back pocket. He had done so since
he was six years old. Photographs of Welles Crowther were shown to those who
had benefited from his help on the final morning of his life and they confirmed
what Mrs. Crowther knew: Welles was Red Bandanna Man.
His family, in 2001, established the Welles Remy Crowther Charitable Trust, whose mission is to "honor and keep their beloved son's memory alive through good works benefiting young people." To date, the Trust has repeatedly and continuously achieved its mission.
Six seasons ago, before COVID-19 wreaked havoc on life in these United States in general and on college football in particular, the nationally-ranked University of Southern California Trojans flew cross-country to Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts to play Welles Crowther's
Alma mater, Boston College, in a college football game in which the Trojans,
having defeated the Stanford Cardinal one week earlier, were established as the
clear favorite. The Eagles broke out their special-edition Red Bandanna uniforms.
Although in fifty-three-plus years on this planet I have regularly debunked the notion that clothes make the man, on that September evening six seasons ago, they sure as hell helped. The underdog Eagles took down the #9 Trojans 37-31.
If you have not yet done so, then might I be so bold as to commend to your attention one of the finest books I have ever read, which is Tom Rinaldi's The Red Bandanna: A life. A choice. A legacy. Be warned however that it does not come with a red bandanna. I mention that because by book's end, you might find yourself needing one...
Richard Allen Pearlman was eighteen years old when he was killed in the collapse of the South Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Pearlman has the sad distinction of being the youngest first responder killed on that terrible Tuesday morning. He was a member of the Forest Hills Volunteer Ambulance Corps and was training to become a EMT.
He had always told his mom, Dori, he wanted to be an EMT because he wanted to save the world. On the final day of his life, he died doing just that. Mission accomplished, young man. Mission accomplished.
In the Haskell family,
the FDNY is the family business. Thomas Haskell,
Sr. joined the FDNY in 1969, after having first served his country in the United
States Marine Corps. In his ten years on the job, which career was cut
short by a heart attack he suffered in 1979, he started out with 35 Truck and
then moved over to Ladder 174 in East Flatbush, Brooklyn.
Thomas Haskell, Sr.,
who died in 1994, had five children - four of whom were sons. Three of
his sons followed him into the family business. Two of the three died on
the job on Tuesday, September 11, 2001.
Timothy Haskell was thirty-four years young when he died in the North
Tower of the World Trade Center. FF Haskell was a member of Rescue 18 in
the West Village. That morning, he had just completed a fifteen-hour
shift and was on his way to the subway when he saw smoke spewing from the
towers. He ran back to the firehouse, put on his gear, and headed off
into harm's way. He could not help himself. As his sister, Dawn,
proudly observed, "he was always rescuing something."
FF
Timothy Haskell
Rescue
18 - FDNY
His big brother, Thomas Haskell, Jr., thirty-seven years young, was the first-born of the quintet of
Haskell siblings. He was a Captain with Ladder Company 132 in Brooklyn
who the FDNY posthumously promoted to Battalion Chief. Unlike his
bachelor brother, Timothy, Captain Haskell was a husband and a father.
His wife, Barbara, and he were the proud parents of three daughters,
Meaghan, Erin, and Tara.
Battalion
Chief Thomas Haskell, Jr.
Ladder
132 - FDNY
FF Ken Haskell - the
third member of the Haskell Brothers' Firefighting Fraternity and youngest of
the trio - survived September 11, 2001. He was off-duty that morning. Ten years after the attacks, Dennis Smith, the author of Report from Ground Zero, wrote A Decade of Hope: Stories of Grief and Endurance from 9/11 Families and Friends. Ken Haskell is among those with whom Dennis Smith spoke and his contribution to the book is worth a read.
Because when rescuing
others is imprinted in your familial DNA, it is not a responsibility you ever
shirk. Not once. Not ever.
On the golf course, friends of FDNY Firefighter Kevin Bracken of Engine Company 40 in Manhattan believed in his luck from the moment they watched a ball he hit into the trees be-bop its way onto the fairway.
His wife, Jennifer Liang, said that her husband's luck stemmed in significant part from his positive mental attitude. He was, according to her, the most optimistic person she had ever met. A man who, irrespective of his present situation, always had a smile on his face.
Tuesday, September 11, 2001 was primary election day in New York City. That morning, after he and Jennifer voted, they said goodbye and he headed to the firehouse to begin his tour. Shortly after he arrived, the Cavemen were dispatched to the World Trade Center. Eleven of them died there, including Kevin Bracken.
Three weeks from today is September 11, 2020. Nineteen years ago, September 11 fell on a Tuesday. It was a beautiful, blue-sky morning.
The Rev. Mychal Fallon Judge, O.F.M.
Chaplain, FDNY
Father Mychal Judge was ordained in 1961, twenty-eight years after being in Brooklyn as the older of a set of fraternal twins. He, his twin sister Dympna, and his older sister Erin grew up as children of the Great Depression.
Shortly after American Airlines Flight 11 tore into the North Tower of the World Trade Center at approximately 8:45 am on that terrible Tuesday morning, Father Judge arrived on the scene. Mayor Giuliani asked him to pray for the victims and to pray for New York City. In the street outside the Twin Towers, Father Judge prayed over the bodies lying there. When a command post was set up in the lobby of the North Tower, Father Judge moved inside and, there, continued to minister to the dead, the injured, and the men and women pouring into the building to rescue those trapped inside.
At 9:59 am, the South Tower collapsed. It collapse sent debris flying into and through the North Tower lobby, killing a number of people. Father Judge was struck in the head by a piece of debris, which killed him. His body was discovered by NYPD Lieutenant William Cosgrove who, along with FF Christian Waugh, FF Zachary Vause, EMT Kevin Allen (all three of whom were FDNY), and former Major John P. Maguire, United States Army (a civilian who was at the scene), carried Father Judge from the building.
Photo Credit - Shannon Stapleton (Reuters)
It remains an iconic image of that day. Five men, some of whom were likely strangers to one another and strangers to Father Judge, coming together to assist one who had devoted his life to coming to assisting others.
On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 77 left Dulles International Airport with five children on board. Three of the kids were sixth-graders from the Washington, D.C. public school system who were flying to California, accompanied by their respective teachers, on a trip sponsored by National Geographic. Flight 77 never made it to California. It was hijacked shortly after takeoff and then flown by its hijackers into the Pentagon, killing everyone on board and one hundred and twenty-five people on the ground.
Bernard Curtis Brown II, eleven years young, loved school but was afraid of flying. So much so in fact that before his big trip, his dad made sure he had a heart-to-heart with his young son - reassuring him that everything would be just fine. His mother, Sinita, spoke glowingly of her little boy's love of school, "He lived to go to school. If he was sick, he would always say he was feeling better so he could get to school." He was a sixth-grader at Leckie Elementary. His dad, Chief Petty Officer Bernard Brown, United States Navy, worked at the Pentagon in 2001. On that terrible Tuesday morning, fortunately, he was not at the Pentagon. He was out of the office participating in a previously-scheduled golf outing.
Rodney Dickens, also eleven years young and also a sixth-grader, represented Ketcham Elementary on the trip to California. His obituary in The Washington Post described him as a honor student who never failed to make the honor roll. He loved to read, to play computer games, and to play with his two sisters (one a year older and one a year younger than Rodney) and his two little brothers. He adored his mom, LaShawn. According to his aunt, Cynthia Dickens, Rodney's favorite thing to do was to watch professional wrestling. I seem to recall a lifetime or so ago, when my own son was eleven years old, he spent a fair amount of time watching pro wrestling. When I read that about this youngster, it made me smile.
Asia Cottom, age eleven, was a sixth-grader at Backus Middle School. She loved science, math, and Tweety Bird from the Looney Tunes cartoons. She boarded Flight 77 that morning for her cross-country trip to California wearing her "Tweety gear". She enjoyed and excelled at science and math. Her goal was to be a pediatrician. Asia was one of two Cottom children. She and her big brother, Isiah, were the younger members of a close-knit quartet headed by their mother and father, Michelle and Clifton Cottom. In the aftermath of losing their youngest child - and their only daughter - Michelle and Clifton Cottom did something I consider extraordinary. They started the Asia SiVon Cottom Memorial Scholarship Fund. The Fund provides financial assistance to "deserving students who have excelled academically and are pursuing undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)." To date it has provided more than $265,000 in scholarships to close to one hundred students.
Each of these three families, in the all-too-brief time they shared with their child, did their job. There is so much that time and memory fade away. It is the job of all of us to make sure that their work remains untouched by either.
Josephine Smith was thirty-four in November 2014, when she graduated from the FDNY Academy and joined the department where her father had worked for roughly half of his life. She was the first female FDNY legacy.
She was also the first daughter of one of the FDNY's 343 heroes who died on September 11, 2001 to follow in her father's footsteps. FF Kevin Smith was a charter member of one of the FDNY's elite units, HAZMAT 1, in Maspeth, Queens, having served there since its inception in 1984. Following the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, he was detailed to the Mayor's Office of Emergency Management. His wife, Jerri, said that it was by conscious choice and deliberate design that he took on the most dangerous aspect of a dangerous occupation.
On September 11, 2001, FF Smith and his brothers from HAZMAT 1 were rescuing people from the South Tower of the World Trade Center when it collapsed at 9:59 a.m. Eleven members of HAZMAT 1 died that morning in the South Tower.
In a perfect world, the Smiths, father and daughter, might have had the opportunity to work together in their dream job, serving and protecting New York City. Tragically, it was an opportunity that the fates would not allow. The fates could not keep Josephine Smith from following her dream. The fates could not keep Josephine Smith from blazing her own path while following in her father's footsteps.
And the world is a better place because of her resilience...
Although we share the same Alma mater, I did not know Thomas Glasser either while he was at Wardlaw or, for his senior year, at the newly-merged Wardlaw-Hartridge. He was a member of the class of '78, which was the first year of the merger. Kara, Jill, and I did not matriculate on over to W-H until the 1978-79 school year. I knew who he was merely from having read about him in W-H's school paper, The Beacon, in which tales of his distance-running prowess during cross-country season in the fall and during track season in the spring were well-reported.
Tom Glasser was not simply an excellent high school runner as he proved when he won a gold medal at the 1981 Maccabiah Games in Israel and as he proved repeatedly during his collegiate running career at Haverford College. His career was extraordinary enough at Haverford College that its athletic hall-of-fame is named for him: The Thomas Glasser '82 Hall of Achievement.
On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, Tom Glasser was just forty years old. He lived with his wife, Meg, and the couple's two sons, Dylan and Luke, in Summit, New Jersey, not too terribly far from his hometown of Westfield.
Because our time at W-H did not overlap, my knowledge of Tom Glasser for a very long time was limited solely to his athletic prowess. It was not until after he died that I realized just how much I had to learn about him; including that he was even a better man than he was an athlete. In 2001, Tom came to Summit PBA Local #55 with an idea for helping the children of Summit police officers (and by extension their moms and dads). His idea? Creation of a scholarship fund to assist those children who wanted to go to college to earn a degree in Criminal Justice or a related field of study. The first scheduled meeting of the Fund was mid-September, 2001. Tom Glasser was killed one week earlier. In honor of it having been Tom's brainchild and in order to honor his memory, the scholarship was named for him and the Thomas I. Glasser Memorial Scholarship Fund, Inc. was born. Nineteen years later, it is still going strong and still providing a helping hand.
As I was doing on-line research for this piece, I came across this beautiful essay written by Tom Glasser's niece, Becca Glasser-Baker. Simply extraordinary stuff.
About a man who was just that - simply extraordinary.
Middlesex Boro, New Jersey, which is where I have lived for (good grief) almost thirty years, suffered a single loss on September 11, 2001. We honor his memory in a beautiful memorial that has been erected in Victor Crowell Park. Whenever I go for a run in Middlesex, I make sure my route includes the Memorial where I stop momentarily and pay my respects. Officer Thomas E. Gorman, a member of the Emergency Services Unit of the Port Authority New York / New Jersey Police Department, was one of thirty-seven members of his department who died in the line of duty at the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. He was among the first members of his department on the scene.
Perhaps. At least there is one of equal magnitude.
In 2014, Patrick Gorman, Tom and Barbara's only son, joined the Port Authority Police Department as an officer. He wears his father's shield. He is not simply carrying on his father's legacy. He has created his own.
I am slowly, inexorably coming to grips with the fact that Margaret and I are not likely to spend September's final weekend in lower Manhattan, as we have done every year for the past decade. Although it has not yet been officially cancelled, it certainly appears unlikely to me that the annual Tunnel to Towers New York City 5K, which begins on the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and ends in lower Manhattan shall take place this year. Given that it is our participation in it that has brought us into the city at September's end all these years, if it is cancelled then so shall our annual pilgrimage be.
There is no greater example of which I am aware of a family turning an unspeakable tragedy into something extraordinary than what the family of FDNY FF Stephen G. Siller, Squad 1 (Brooklyn) has done since he died while saving others at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Stephen Siller was the youngest of the seven Siller children. He was orphaned by age ten after losing first his father and then, eighteen months later, his mother. His older siblings raised him.
FDNY FF Stephen G. Siller - Squad 1 (Brooklyn)
On the morning of September 11, 2001, FF Siller was heading to a golf game with his brothers, having just completed a twenty-four-hour shift, when he heard the call on the scanner of the North Tower being struck by a plane. He telephoned his wife, Sally, and asked her to call his brothers to tell them he could not join them and why. Off-duty, and with five children at home, the idea of being anywhere but at the World Trade Center was an anathema to him. He hung up with his wife, headed back to his firehouse to grab his gear, and then headed to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel so he could get to lower Manhattan.
The tunnel had already been closed to vehicle traffic. FF Siller grabbed his gear out of his truck, dressed, and started running to Manhattan through the tunnel. As someone who has made that journey wearing shorts, a t-shirt, and running shoes I can attest firsthand to just how hot and uncomfortable an experience it is to run through that tunnel. Discomfort did not stop Stephen Siller. It likely did not even slow him down very much, if at all.
He made it to the World Trade Center. There, working shoulder to shoulder with his brothers from the FDNY as well as members of the NYPD and the PA NY/NJ PD, he died.
