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NYC firefighters providing 9/11 awareness in Grand Rapids

tunnel2towers.org

As the nation remembers the men and women who lost their lives in the 9/11 terror attacks, the “9/11 Never Forget” mobile exhibit is on display at Grand Rapids’ Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum through Sunday.

“I felt sad inside and I had this feeling that I couldn’t really explain.”

“It was hard to see all these people just, get killed and it was just so hard but the people who saved them really had a big soul.”

“I wish the firefighters could have saved everybody in there.”

That’s Murray Lake Elementary School 10-year olds Alex Winter, Keagan Fitch, and Brady Swift visiting the “9/11 Never Forget” mobile exhibit.

“Personally I knew over 100 of the guys and it was just hard. The hardest part actually for 9/11 for me was, not so much being at the scene and, and, and searching, doing our search and recovery, the hardest part for me was attending all the funerals.”

John Carroll is a retired Battalion Chief from the New York City Fire Department.

“I’m now volunteering and giving tours with the Stephen Siller 9/11 Exhibit travelling the country to keep the awareness of 9/11 alive and we also use it as a tool to raise money for the smart homes we’re building for the catastrophically injured veterans…So the emotional part of losing our friends and colleagues on 9/11 we tried to just move forward and do good out of the bad that happened that day.”

For anyone not familiar with the name Stephen Siller, Carroll explains, “Stephen Siller was a New York City firefighter actually on his way home from work when the first plane hit the towers. He drove his car back to the firehouse which was located in Brooklyn, New York and he was going to respond over with his company but they were already gone. He ran inside the firehouse, grab 70 pounds of his gear and he ran the 3.2 miles to ground zero and subsequently lost his life in one of the collapses when the buildings came down.”

The “9/11 Never Forget” mobile exhibit is on display at Grand Rapids’ Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum through Sunday.

Patrick Center, WGVU News.

Patrick joined WGVU Public Media in December, 2008 after eight years of investigative reporting at Grand Rapids' WOOD-TV8 and three years at WYTV News Channel 33 in Youngstown, Ohio. As News and Public Affairs Director, Patrick manages our daily radio news operation and public interest television programming. An award-winning reporter, Patrick has won multiple Michigan Associated Press Best Reporter/Anchor awards and is a three-time Academy of Television Arts & Sciences EMMY Award winner with 14 nominations.
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