A Capitalist Christmas Carol

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Frank Siller is the anti-Scrooge, asking what he and his fellow Americans can do.​

By William McGurn
From today's WSJ.

HO, HO, HO, Frank Siller is a great man and Tunnels to Towers is a great charity.

"When Santa comes down the chimney, all he has to do is fill stockings and leave presents. But if the families Frank Siller serves are to have a merry Christmas, he sometimes has to supply the chimney itself—and the home attached to it.

Mr. Siller, 69, is chairman and CEO of the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, which he started a month after 9/11. Its mission is simple but daunting: to pay off mortgages for families of military members and first responders killed in the line of duty—or, for those seriously injured by their service, to build them custom homes that help them lead lives of dignity and independence.

“The holidays can be an extremely difficult time for the Fallen First Responder families and Gold Star families we serve,” Mr. Siller says. And being able to keep their homes can be a big worry.
Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Israel “D.T.” Del Toro can tell you what this help can mean. In 2005, while serving in Afghanistan, his Humvee was hit by an improvised explosive device—which left him with severe burns, no fingers on his left hand and those on his right amputated at the knuckle. Christmas came early for the Del Toros this year. In October they moved in to a custom-built “smart” home just outside Colorado Springs, Colo.

“For us, it’s like a gift that you never thought you’d get, that you didn’t deserve. Now I open up the back porch door and stare out at my ranch.”

The sergeant’s favorite feature? He can control everything from his smartphone. “When I’m out and my wife’s at home, I sometimes mess with the lights,” he laughs.

In many ways Tunnel to Towers is about Americans taking the initiative. Everyone knows Ebenezer Scrooge’s retort in “A Christmas Carol” when asked to do his bit to alleviate the want and misery around him: “Are there no workhouses?” Scrooge wasn’t the first to try to slough off responsibility for his fellow man on some faceless institution.

Mr. Siller asked himself a different question: How can I help? With the assistance of like-minded angels—volunteers as well as donors—he has raised more than $500 million, building 120 custom homes and paying off mortgages for another 480 families. This year they’ve also provided housing for more than 500 homeless vets. It’s impossible to imagine a private effort on this scale anywhere but America.

Mr. Siller would tell you the real hero of this story is his younger brother Stephen, a New York City firefighter. On 9/11, when Stephen heard that a plane had slammed into the World Trade Center, he drove to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and found it closed to car traffic. So he strapped on 60 pounds of gear, ran through the tunnel to Manhattan—and made his way to the towers. He never came home.


Stephen left behind a wife and five children, which points to another key feature of his brother’s work. It’s focused on families.

“We are very aware of the fact that when someone steps up to serve, their entire family serves alongside them,” he says. “All of the work Tunnel to Towers does traces back to the families.”

Every day we hear complaints about the heartlessness of America’s capitalist society. Tunnel to Towers, by contrast, is built on faith in the good hearts and generosity of the American people. Mr. Siller’s America is one where ordinary citizens take the initiative.

“I always say, ‘It is because of the goodness of America that we can help the greatness of America,’ ” Mr. Siller says. Most of his contributors are individuals, many giving through his $11-a-month program.

“That is the goodness of America,” he says. “Thousands of people, coming together each month, making a commitment to help our heroes. It’s an incredible thing.”

Certainly the government has its obligations, as Abraham Lincoln put it, “to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan.” But what an impoverished country we’d be if we were content to leave what our charities do best to a government agency.

“Relying on funding from individual donors, businesses, and corporate sponsors allows us to move at a speed that, unfortunately, the government often cannot match,” Mr. Siller says. “These families need support the second they lose their loved one, or the second they return home in a wheelchair and realize they cannot easily move around their own home.”

Mr. Siller knows he can’t bring back the absent loved ones or cure those who have been wounded. But he and his merry band do what they can. And because of what they do, this coming Sunday morning the families of soldiers, police officers and firemen who have sacrificed so much will wake up to a brighter Christmas."

Write to [email protected].
 
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