West Sayville honors 9/11 victims as World Trade Center beam arrives

Hundreds of Long Islanders gathered in West Sayville around a 26-foot steel beam from the World Trade Center, turning the LT Michael P. Murphy Navy SEAL Museum into a place of remembrance, education and family memory as the artifact arrived on its Steel Across America tour.

The 16,000-pound beam, recovered from the South Tower, was the third stop on Tunnel to Towers Foundation’s nationwide journey, which launched May 2 in Lower Manhattan and is scheduled to run through September, covering more than 35 stops across 21-plus states and more than 10,500 miles before returning to Ground Zero on Sept. 11, the 25th anniversary of the attacks. The foundation says the tour is meant to help younger generations learn what happened on Sept. 11, 2001 and to honor the 2,977 people killed that day.

The West Sayville stop carried special meaning for Suffolk County because the beam was displayed at a museum built around the story of Lt. Michael P. Murphy, the Patchogue native who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor after dying June 28, 2005, during Operation Red Wings in Orgun, Afghanistan. The museum says Murphy wore an FDNY Engine 53/Ladder 43 patch on missions as a tribute to firefighters lost on 9/11, tying his military service directly to the grief that still shapes Long Island families.

The ceremony was led by Tunnel to Towers board member and retired FDNY Lt. Tom O’Connor. The Suffolk County Police Department Emerald Society Band performed, Reverend Michael Stanek of the Suffolk County Police Department delivered the invocation and blessing of the steel, and Chris Wyllie, the museum’s executive director and a retired Navy SEAL, spoke about how 9/11 inspired a generation of service members, including Murphy. Stephen Siller Jr. closed the event by presenting a commemorative steel flag to the Murphy family.

Frank Siller, chairman and CEO of Tunnel to Towers and brother of fallen FDNY firefighter Stephen Siller, has said the tour is about making sure every generation understands the courage shown by civilians, first responders and service members. In West Sayville, that message landed in a place where remembrance is not abstract. For Suffolk families, the beam was more than a piece of steel. It was a physical link between Lower Manhattan, the battlefield in Afghanistan and a county that still treats 9/11 as lived history.