D.C. ceremony honors service members killed in war on terror

WASHINGTON — More than 7,000 U.S. service members killed in the nearly two decades of war in Afghanistan and Iraq were honored in a somber ceremony on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Thursday — a Veterans Day tribute that comes some two months after the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

One by one the names of the fallen were read aloud in an event organized by the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, a nonprofit founded by the family of Rockville Centre native Stephen Siller, an FDNY firefighter who was killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks at the World Trade Center. Siller, 34, having recently finished his shift at a Brooklyn firehouse, ran from the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel to Lower Manhattan, carrying 60-pounds of equipment, to aid in the rescue effort.

"When Americans saw what happened on Sept. 11, many of them felt compelled to serve and defend our country. It was under attack," said Frank Siller, the foundation’s CEO and one of Stephen’s six surviving siblings. "So it is so important that we are here today on Veterans Day reading the names of those who did not come home."

The group also lined the Lincoln Memorial's Reflecting Pool with luminaries displaying the names of the 7,070 U.S. military members who have died overseas since the 2001 attacks.

Siller announced that the foundation, which raises money to help pay off the home mortgages of fallen and wounded service members and law enforcement officers, planned to provide mortgage-free homes to an additional 35 Gold Star families who lost a service member overseas.

"We want to make sure that their sacrifice is not forgotten," Siller told an audience of veterans and Gold Star families. "We do it on a day like today to tell those families they're not alone, that the country hasn’t forgotten about them, that their fellow Americans have not forgotten about them."

Last month the group announced it will pay off the mortgages of 20 homes in New York, including 12 on Long Island, that belong to the families of first responders who have died from 9/11-related illnesses.

Among those speaking at the event was Bradley Blakeman, a former senior White House adviser to President George W. Bush and younger brother of Republican Bruce Blakeman, who has declared victory in the Nassau County Executive Race.

Bradley Blakeman, who grew up in Valley Stream with his brother and three sisters before going on to work in the White House for Bush and Presidents George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, told Newsday the day’s event recognized that in the wake of the 9/11, "ordinary citizens did extraordinary things"

He recalled the life of his nephew Thomas Edward Jurgens, 26, an Army medic from Lawrence who was killed in the 9/11 attacks after rushing from his post as a court officer at a nearby courthouse to help evacuate people from the South Tower of the World Trade Center.

"The war on terror may have begun on 9/11, twenty years ago, but it continues today," said Blakeman. "Men and women continue to make sacrifices, leaving their homes, leaving their jobs, leaving their families. It’s a calling of putting yourself second to your country."