Hey, this is Buck Sexton and you're listening to the Tutor Dixon Podcast, part of the Clay Travers and Buck Sexton podcast Network. Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast. I want to encourage all of us to remember and honor the sacrifices that have been made by so many to protect and preserve the United States. Today is a special day. We remember those we lost as a result of the attacks on our country on September eleventh, two thousand and one.
That day, we lost two nine hundred and seventy seven Americans. We hear so many stories of heroism from that day, the man in the red bandana, the volunteer, the off duty firefighters who rushed to the scenes, and the neighbors and civilians who faced horror like we have never seen. Frank Siller has one of his own stories of heroism
from that day. Frank is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Tunnel to Towers Foundation, which was starting in remembrance of his little brother, Stephen, a New York City Fire Department firefighter who gave his life on nine to eleven. Before I bring Frank in with me, I want to first tell you about a great product that I have
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free shipping. That's one hundred and fifty dollars savings. It's Ekpere dot Com Code Dixon, Ekpre dot Com Code Dixon. Now I want to welcome Frank Seller onto the podcast. Thank you so much for joining us today on this day that, like I said before we got in on here, all of us remember this day who lived through it, All of us remember the devastation and watching. For those of us who were there in person watching it happen, and for those of us that were watching it on TV,
will never forget. But for you it's different.
You.
I've never actually heard your story. I've seen you on TV a million times. I knew that you had that your brother, you had lost your brother, not heard that you were going golfing that morning, that that was your plan.
Yes, So twenty two years ago today, my brother Stephen was just finished his night tour in squad Wan in Brooklyn, which is an elite firehouse. They trained for terrorism, and they trained to rescue other firefighters. And he just finished his store. He was driving on his way home. He's going to play golf with myself, my brother George, and my brother Russ. And he heard on the radio scan of what, you know, the tablets were hit. So, you know,
what do these great heroes do. They turn around, they go.
He went back to his firehouse, he got his gear.
His fire company would already responded, you know, to the call to duty. And so he got his gear and drove to the mouth of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. If you listeners who don't know, that tunnel connects Brooklyn with downtown Manhattan. It's almost two miles long. It was closed for security reasons. You know, people already banding their cars in there, and they didn't weren't letting anyone go in
towards the Manhattan obviously for obvious reasons. So he pulled over his truck, got out, put his sixty pounds of fire gear on his back, and ran through that tunnel up West Street to what we believe he ran into the South Tower because that's where his other firefighter buddies were recovered later on, and I'm sure he found out that he knew that his firefighter guys that he trained with every day were in the South Tower. So that's where you'd want to go and rescue people and be
around the people you train with every day. And while going up those stairs and saving others, he gave up his life. And when we heard the story of what my brother did that day, I didn't you know, we didn't know, you know that for sure that he died on nine to eleven on twenty two years ago, you know, when the South Tower came down. Actually I felt inside that I did lose my brother. At that point, I remember turning to my mother in law and saying, hey, Nancy, I think I just lost my brother.
Wow.
Not knowing that he got there, I had no idea, you know that. You know. I kept on saying, well, maybe he couldn't get there, and maybe the towers came down before he got there. You know, I was praying, and you know, but to go back to that, you know, that day twenty two years ago, and I'll just for your listeners to understand what all nine love families are
going through that day. So I found out that my brother was on a list of missing firefighters, and I was going to different firehouses, and I actually was preparing to go to ground zero myself with a company out of Staten allan Call Rescue five. You know, all these guys all my life, you know, Staten anam's a really blue collar you know, copspyfighters and all that kind of stuff.
And and so.
But eventually I realized that they was so horrific. I had my siblings come over my house. So Stephen was the youngest of seven kids and and he was a father of five. So I start to have him come to my house. And later in the afternoon, a friend of my brother's, a firefighter, Richie Obermiah, who actually lived two doors away from my brother on Staten Island, called me up and said, hey, Frank, this is Richie. You
know I'm down here at ground zero. I want you to know that Steven's on the list of missing firefighters. And I said, yeah, Richie, I knew that. Thank you for calling me. You know, I've been trying to call Stephen, you know, trying to contact him. And he goes, well, you know, he's on that list, and I want to let you know that it's really bad. Down here, and I said, yeah, Richie, I could see it's bad. I'm here with my family, My sisters are here, my brothers
are here. You know, I could see how bad he's He goes no, Frank gets bad. I said, rich I'm looking at it. I see it's bad. He goes, no, you don't understand. Nobody's coming home. And I had to get off the phone and tell my sisters and my brothers that, and you know, it really brought us to our knees.
My sister Gina was wailing.
And we were devastated, and you know, you know, we didn't know one hundred percent he was gone at that point, but like I mentioned to you before, I felt he was gone, knowing that he had gotten there. And so it was a terrible day. But there was so many acts of heroism. I heard you talked about the man in the red bandana on your intro, and that Wells Crowther.
You know, I know his mom, you know I spoke to her.
If you go to our website, we have his story up there. Because there was so many acts of heroism that some are told, some on told that you know, the people will never know about it. And so today we're remembering all twenty nine hundred and seventy seven souls that were killed taken from us on that day.
The people who were going in that day, like your brother Stephen, when they got that call, when they heard that. I mean, I remember I walked. I was working in Chicago at the time, and I took a train to a bus to my building and I get off and I go up to my building and they were just cops surrounding and they're like, you can't come in here. This is you know, We've secured it. You're leaving, go home. And I remember thinking, the heck, what are you talking about?
You know, because you didn't have smartphones, you didn't know everything. It wasn't the detail wasn't right in front of you. And even getting on that bus and I'm turning on the radio and hearing the tower has fallen, my mind could could not comprehend what that meant. You know, you can't. You don't see it, you're hearing it. What did those people think that they were going to when your brother rushed off? What did they think compared to what they saw?
I know exactly what they thought they were going to. And I know this because I've spoken to so many firefighters that survived that day, and I have accounts of them saying goodbye, now, I'll see you later when they were going in those buildings. And you have to know this, and America shall never forget this, that those firefighters knew there was a strong possibility that that was the last.
Moments they were going to live.
So did they know that, well, they my brother know that when he was running through the through the Brooklyn Battery tunnel with his fire year on his back, you know when he made that decision. No, did he know when he went up to West Street and then when he finally got to these.
To the towers, Yes, no doubt about it.
Because at that point people were already imagine, faced with this choice, the people above the fire line, and I have to say this because it's a reality check for everybody, the people above the fire line, which my heart breaks for, they were faced with two choices to burn or to jump, And it was so sad to watching it. And if you're there, these firefighters that were there on the ground were seeing this happening. At this point, they knew it was hell on earth at that moment, but they brought
such grace and courage and heroism to that day. I look at that day as one of the greatest acts of love ever that all those firefighters and police offers is and everyday people like Wells Crowd, the men of the Red bandann Are, and so many other stories that they went in there to save people knowing there's a strong possibility they were going to give up their lives, and so many of them did, and so many of
them did so. To answer your question, yeah, they knew what they get what they were getting into.
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on the Tutor Dixon Podcast. I think we see those pictures like the Falling Man, and it's interesting now because you know, my kids, they didn't live through this, and we were there, My sister was in New York City and we were watching all of this happen, and it's just so exactly what you said, So powerful to think that they faced a decision and they chose that because the other was
so horrific, knowing that there was no way out. But I think we also see those pictures of like the woman who was covered in dust walking down downtown, just kind of aimlessly walking. And I remember my sister saying that that happened all day long. She just saw people walking from ground zero up to up North in Manhattan, just kind of aimlessly with their their briefcase covered in that dust. She was an an. She went back and she was doing pro bono work getting people signed in
and getting information from people. And she said, I can remember at the time sitting down at ground zero and she said, from the time it took me to fill out one person's form, I would have to push all the dust off and move to the next form. Because even even weeks after the dust was falling, A lot of people have been sick since then and they've and you support those people as well, because a lot of these people have gone through, these people that were heroes
and just people that lived down there. I mean, we really didn't know what the impact of this was. We've never experienced anything like this in the history of the country before. What is it like for those people now? And how do you support those people that have gotten this illness that is kind of this mysterious illness that they've many people have been sick in different ways from nine to eleven.
Well, so once again for your listeners to know that tunnel to Twis Foundation, who I'm proud to say I'm the CEO chairman of.
Takes care of every.
Cop, every firefighter, every first responder in America who dies in the line of duty, has young children left behind. We're going to deliver them a mortgage free home. If they don't have a home, we're going to find them at home. And if they do have home, and most of them do, we're going to pay off their mortgage. We do that for gold Star widows, and we built especially adapted smart homes for our country's most catastrophically injured
service members. But after nine to eleven, so many these great heroes that were on that freaking pile looking for their brothers and their loved ones or just everybody who was missing. Because over you know, there was two thousand and nine and seventy seven, as I mentioned.
Before, people died that day.
There was alose, so I think it's twelve hundred plus that were never recovered.
They were there trying to find them.
The police officers, firefighters, people came from all over the United States. Your sister was there, Your sister had that dust coming on them, and they were all told not to worry.
Get pat it well.
Let me tell you, there's over the two hundred, three hundred and three hundred and thirty eighth firefighter who died of nine to eleven illnesses just died the other day. There's been over three hundred police officers who have died of nine to eleven illnesses. And if they have a young family left behind, because we're a first responder to this foundation, we're going to take care of their families.
We're going to pay off their mortgages. I have a friend of mine who I just visited just the other day, Ace Candlon Mike Candon. But he was Ace to me growing up. We've been friends for sixty four years, all right, since we've been since we've six years old, first grade. And his job he worked for Otis Elevator. His job was to go in after nine to eleven and clean out the soot inside the elevators. Chefs and now he
wore all the apparatus and everything. But it doesn't matter, just like we know, masks doesn't matter, right, you know for other things.
Like cook and he wore the you know, he's dying.
He's he's moments away from dying of nine to eleven cancer because of what he Inhaled and what it's gone through his body. It just keeps on taking so many people. It's the terrorist attack that keeps on killing. I know that those who did this are smiling when that happens, and that's what we have to remember what we're up against.
Always that they would love to do this again. They would love to instead of killing.
They'd love as many zeros after that number that we give twenty nine hundred and seventy seven. If they put another zero on that, they would have been happier, and another zero they'd even been more happy. So this is what we're up against, and that's why we can't forget. We just can never forget that we are always going to be under assault and we have to always protect
our country. One last point here on that since nine to eleven, over seven thousand men and women have died protecting us, so we didn't have to have another nine eleven. And so many bad things have happened obviously in Afghanistan, and withdrawal, all that kind of stuff sickens me, sickens me, and all those families had to see that they lost their loved ones. And this is how you're gonna come out of there. And and all the good.
Work that we were doing there.
But we got to remember those families that are left behind too, because they're part of all part of nine to eleven, because we wouldn't gone a war if it wasn't for nine to eleven. And that's why our foundation takes care of all these gold Saw families that have given their lives, the loved ones, given their lives for our country and have young families, and a lot of them don't have houses because they move from base to base or whatever you know, may be and in their military.
And that's why we build them, you know, a gold a widow and their children a mortgage free home. And we're so proud of the work that would do. We're connected with our military because of what happened on nine to eleven. First respond the same mentality anyway, the courage, the heroism is incredible.
You have so much support. You say, I mean, you're passionate about this stuff, and you're passionate about the mistakes that were made in Afghanistan. You've come out and you've you've been very open about how you feel about this stuff. After nine to eleven, there was like this great uniting in the country like we've really not seen in decades. The country came together. There were people that were just pro America. Whatever it is, We're going to support America.
And I think that when when it comes to Tunnel to Towers, you still see that you've phraised over five hundred million to support heroes and their families. And that isn't coming from just one side that comes fro. I mean, I've seen you with celebrities, I've seen you with all kinds of people from different backgrounds who are just like, look, this is what we do. We support our heroes. How do you keep that going? How in this world that seems so divided right now? How do you keep that going?
I love it, but I just what is that magic that you can keep that going?
Well, you know, it's great that you mentioned that because I got to tell you, I am around great Americans all the time. I am so blessed. It's incredible.
And they come to us.
You mentioned some of the celebrities you know, like Wohlberg, Cole House.
Rob Load and It's Quay.
You know, it's incredible. They come to us because they want to help and they believe in our mission. And you know, whether they believe in our mission. It's very simple. Who couldn't believe and take care of these great families are left behind? I think almost every American would believe in that. I mean there's some crazies out there that you know that I think America is terrible, you know,
shame on that. I mean, meanwhile, they live, they have no idea, they live in the they take advantage of everything that these our freedoms are given to us because of these men and women who put it all on the life for us every single day. But that's that's the beauty of America. But yes, I'm around it all the time.
And you know, so people do what they can do. We ask everybody to do eleven dollars a month.
I mean, most people can do that and they know that ninety five point one percent of every dollar that they donate those to our you know, to our programs.
I think that's important because I think most people don't know that sometimes you can give money and that money you're just giving a small portion of that money, but you're talking about ninety five cents on every dollar is actually going to these families, going to the mission.
Right, It's not going in my pocket. That's for sure, I don't get paid. I'm proud of that. I'm a volunteer.
I have tens and tens of thousands of volunteers all across America.
We have I think one hundred golf outings put on for us this year.
David Wells, he's a pitcher, was a pitcher for the Yankees, and while he joined a baseball player who's almost like a Hall of Fame play for nineteen years. These guys are putting on these celebrity golf outings and different golf outings for us and raising so much money. But we have over one hundred golf oundings. We have over nearly one hundred runs and climbs all over the United States, and people can emulate what my brother did that day and what so many other heroes did that day. But
we have three thousand events, three thousand events. The people at dinner or you know, some kind of a small fundraise. I love the little kids that come. I can't tell you how many times I see a ten year old kid or a fifteen year old kid or whatever that did a fundraise and gives us a check for six hundred dollars or eleven hundred dollars It means so much to me and one of the reasons why I'm so proud that we have the nine to Eleven Institute.
On our website.
You go to T two T and just you'll see we have we have kids for classes for K through twelve that a curriculum that you could just press a button and prints out what you can teach your class. We have teachers that downloaded every single day.
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on the Tutor Dixon Podcast. This year, my daughter had her eighth grade field trip to Washington, d C. We went and saw the nine to eleven Memorial there at the Pentagon. It was fascinating to see these seventh and eighth graders who did not live through this were really curious about it. They were looking at all the names. They were talking about, how did how did the plane come in? We went
from there a few months later or too. I took her to New York City and we went down to ground zero and she's she looked at me and she said, Mom, now I saw what happened in DC, and I've seen what happened here, but it's it's still really hard to understand. You have this mobile exhibit. How does that work? How do you how do you talk to young kids about this, because I just think it's the never forget message, you know, we will never forget. But how do we educate so that they know?
It's not easy? But it's parents like you that make it happen. So that's beautiful that you did both both those things go down to the Pentagon and then of course the ground zero.
And you should know, for the twentieth anniversary two years ago today I finished my walk to honor my brother. I walked from the Pentagon to Shanksville where Flate ninety three went down to ground zero, fifteen miles a day for six weeks, five hundred and fifty two miles. And I came into ground zero on this day two years
ago and walked to ground zero. And it's all because at first I went to honor my brother, you know, and I didn't know how to do it in a proper way, and I figured that would be something special, and it was very spiritual for me.
I can't even today you how spiritual it was.
Walking every day and I had hundreds and sometimes thousands of people walk with me, you know, at different at different times, and different days.
It was so beautiful.
I cannot even I just I tell you, it wasn't even hard.
It wasn't hard.
I trained the don't get me wrong, but I'm pretty all. Im seventy years old, but I trained, and I think it made it easier. But I think the real reason why it was easy because I I tell you, my brother was with me, the Holy Spirit was with me, and I just felt like I was I can't explain to you going up a mountain.
I climbed up a mountain one day with.
A double amputee and he had his shorty prosthetics on and three hours straight upper mountain, three hours straight and he didn't complain. So I'm sure as heck was never going to complain, you know. And I saw him do that, and you know, I'm sweating, and you know, of course he was sweating too. But because we did it, I did it in the middle of the summer, but it was it was glorious. But yes, we have to make
sure we never forget. And that's why we have the nine to eleven Institute where you could download these you know, the curriculums and for the age appropriate. And that's why we have a mobile exhibit that goes all over the United States. It's on tractor trail. It's ninety three foot tractor trail and opens up to eleven hundred square foot museum with nine to eleven artifacts. And who's manning that My nine to eleven buddy, my firefighter buddies who lived
that day. We have over two hundred a speakers bureau if somebody wanted somebody to come to speak at an event, because I love going to them, but I can't go to a thousand events, and of course of a year of five thousand events, so we have a speakers bureau. We have hundreds and hundreds of people who lived through that day of nine to eleven, the will to go anywhere and speak about it.
It's you can't forget what happened.
It's our first responsibility at TOMS, the Tallis Foundation, is to never forget an honor the sacrifice.
And brought you brought something up about stair climbs. These folks that there's these events and I've been to one of these events where you climb the number of stairs that those firefighters climb that day. And you go to these events and their aspiermen there in full gear doing this in honor of their brothers who went out that
day and did this and lost their lives. I think it's so valuable to go do this yourself and to I mean, like you said, the walk was so spiritual for you to go do this, and you'll find one in your town. I'm sure they're all over. I mean, people are doing this to honor these folks, but honestly, it's to understand it's more than just to honor. It's to live it and feel it and know what it was like. And you're doing it under no pressure. They're
doing it as this building is falling crumbling around them. Yes, I mean you think about that. You see these firefighters, they're silent, they're not saying anything. They're just in the zone of I'm going to honor these guys. It's pretty amazing.
It's emotional if you're there, it's emotional. You do it with them, it's incredible. You know, we have our marquee event every year is a Tunnel to Towers run, which is a couple weeks away. It's the last Sunday in September, September twenty fourth, and.
You know, we retrace what my brother did. We go run through the.
Tunnel and we have thousands of fire fighters will come from all over the country. Matter of fact, we have thirty countries that are represented and we have one hundred and fifty London fire fighters that come.
Every every year.
Yeah, but my point is is that we all we bring all these people again once again, make sure we out of the sacrifice and never forget. But you run through the tunnel with these We have twenty five hundred West Point Cadets that running cadence. They chant for the tunnel.
If you're in that tunnel, it's just it's just it.
It is the most patriotic event that you could be in America, period, bar none. And it was voted that some magazine voted it once, you know, a while ago, but it's true. And then you come out of that tunnel.
We have the pictures of.
All every firefighter and every police officer that died that they held by other five fighters and cops.
Oh wow, but.
Their face shoulder to shoulder. You put all them, you know, three hundred and forty three firefighters together.
We're holding that boundary. You'll see how long that line is.
And then the police officers and port authority police officers and rescue workers. And then we have the pictures of all the seven thousand plus men and women who died on the Global War on Terra. They're holding the pictures by ROTC and other military members. It's almost a mile long of all these great people that have paid such a sacrifice for you and for me, and I challenge anybody to come do it one year.
Come do it one year.
It is the most uplifting emotional And then we celebrate their lives with a big, a big celebration on the block right facing ground zero. We cook have them why Firefighter Buddi's cooked for thirty or forty thousand people.
We're cooking for it.
I call it the miracles and the loaves and fishes, because these guys make sure that.
They feed, they feed everybody.
And we have like this year, we have a lady at the bellum, lady a uh uh singing for us, Lesia had Derek Spanley. We have we have a great celebration on the block because these guys are the most women were of the most outrageous people ever, and they wouldn't want us to stay sad, isn't it so?
I mean, think about that though you take the worst terror attack on this nation ever. Isn't it so American that we would come out and we would say, look, you are not going to hold us down. We were always every year, we're going to come together and we're going to say we are stronger than this, We're stronger than terror.
Yeah.
Well yeah, look, goodness always defeeds evil. Read in the Bible, and but it is true and and uh and that's what we do here. And that's why our whole thing about Total to Tallis foundation is is the Saint Francis of ASSISSI. My my parents are very religious and they were. They died when my brother was real young. He was eight and a half years old when my dad died, and a year later my mom died.
So we raised my.
Youngest brother, Stephen, his older siblings.
And I said, he's the youngest of seven, but we were a lot old. I was closest in age.
I was fourteen years older than Stephen. My brother Russ got rest his soul passed recently, was twenty five years older than him. So we were able to take that orphan baby kid and raise him. But say, my parents were Franciscans and they gave us great faith and teach them to live a simple life. Although this foundation is not so simple anymore. But say Francis and ASSISSI said this, brothers and sisters, while we have time, let us do good while we're here. Let us do good because we're
running out of time every single day. So while you have time, don't postpone it.
Do good.
And we remember everybody. We celebrate their lives. But the good that we're doing as a foundation to take care of these families that, like I said before, are willing to risk their lives for you and me and all to often do. Come on, as Americans, come on, let's all get together, you say.
How do we keep this going?
I have no doubt the tone to twas foundation will be around forever. The need will always be there. They'll always be a firefighter or a police officer given their life. There always will be sad to say, there will always be conflicts around the world where America will stand up and take care of the world.
Like we always like we always have.
So we'll always have guys coming back losing their lens and they'll need smart homes. All these things that we're doing will always be there. It need, So the foundation, I have no doubt. I know it for one hundred percent.
Will be here forever because the need will always be there.
But let's all just come together and make this promise that we'll take care of these families that are left behind.
And I think that's why.
They should do.
It's time for us all to do good. And Frank Zeller, you've really done good. And your brother Stephen, what an amazing guy. I mean, his story is the reason that we want to support people who take care of us. His story is the story of everybody who has an emergency and needs that person, and we all need Stephen running through that tower for us, and tunnel to towers allows us to continue to support those families that have people running through tunnels to save us. I appreciate you.
I'm so grateful for you today, and I just ask all of our listeners today take some time to think about those heroes today. Thank a veteran, Thank the people that help you every day. Go to t towot dot org and put that money in that monthly gift to make sure that we can continue to thank our heroes. Thank you, Frank Zeller, thank you and Gobbless, and thank you all for joining me. Today, on this day that we will never forget. On the Tutor Dixon Podcast, thank
you for this episode and others. Go to Tutor diisonpodcast dot com. You can subscribe right there, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And of course I want you to tell everybody you can today to remember our heroes and never forget nine to eleven. Have a blessed day,