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The three Americans who helped thwart a massacre on board a high-speed European train were awarded the Legion d'honneur (Legion of Honor), France's highest decoration, by the country's president Monday.

U.S. Airman Spencer Stone, National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos, and their longtime friend Anthony Sadler were honored for tackling and subduing a suspected Islamist militant carrying an AK-47 on the Paris-bound train Friday.

Francois Hollande praised the actions of the three men, saying "You behaved as soldiers but also as responsible men." Hollande added that the men demonstrated "that faced with terror, we have the power to resist ... You also gave a lesson in courage, in will, and thus in hope." British businessman Chris Norman, who helped Stone, Skarlatos, and Sadler subdue the would-be gunman, also received the medal.

On Sunday evening, Stone, who was stabbed with a box cutter during the melee, described his version of the events on the train for the first time during a press conference at the U.S. ambassador's residence in Paris.

The 23-year-old described how he was waking up from a deep sleep when Skarlatos "just hit me on the shoulder and said 'Let's go.'"

Stone and Skarlatos, 22, moved in to tackle the gunman, identified as 26-year-old Moroccan Ayoub El-Khazzani, and take his assault rifle. Sadler, 23, moved in to help subdue the assailant. "All three of us started punching" him, Stone said. Stone said he choked him unconscious.


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French train gunman belonged to radical Islamist movement


On Monday, Hollande said that with Skarlatos' words, a "veritable carnage" was avoided.

"Since Friday, the entire world admires your courage, your sangfroid, your spirit of solidarity," the French president said. "This is what allowed you to with bare hands -- your bare hands -- to subdue an armed man. This must be an example for all, and a source of inspiration."

Stone is also credited with saving a French-American teacher wounded in the neck with a gunshot wound and squirting blood. Stone described matter-of-factly that he "just stuck two of my fingers in his hole and found what I thought to be the artery, pushed down and the bleeding stopped." He said he kept the position until paramedics arrived.

"When most of us would run away, Spencer, Alek and Anthony ran into the line of fire, saying 'Let's go.' Those words changed the fate of many," U.S. Ambassador Jane Hartley said Sunday

Asked if there were lessons, Sadler had one for all who find themselves in the face of a choice.

"Do something," he said. "Hiding, or sitting back, is not going to accomplish anything. And the gunman would've been successful if my friend Spencer had not gotten up. So I just want that lesson to be learned going forward, in times of, like, terror like that, please do something. Don't just stand by and watch."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Nice to see.

Scott;
It is so.

Have a good week sir.

Dwayne

Indeed, a great effort by those young men, a credit to their nation.

Very classy gesture.

If that happened here I’m thinking Obama would have the DOJ investigate if the Muzzie’s civil rights were violated.

Mr Stone has said: "It seemed like the terrorist was ready to fight until the end but so were we."

Three Americans and a Brit.... a shame that no Frenchmen on that train were willing to man up.

John

Ah, JPB, you are wrong here. One of the American boys said the FIRST man to encounter the scum and attempt a fight WAS a Frenchman.

I believe he managed to get the terrorists AK47 off him, but then quickly dropped it...force of habit!

ET,

Delighted to be corrected, there is hope for France yet! Either I missed that bit of info, or it was not included in the American and British coverage that I read.

I did read one (American) story that failed to mention the Brit, perhaps only natural that a nation's media emphasizes the most relevant aspects to its readers. Maybe some British media are reporting that a Brit (assisted by 3 Americans) did the job!

John

Kudos to the guys that stood up to this Muslim Clown...

Still the western nations should take a cue from how the Canadians dealt with the two Radicals.. one in Quebec and one in Ottawa....

These clowns are cock roaches and need to be treated exactly as that....

western society teaches people to stand down instead of stand up against this type of crap....

it is a society full of people with the "I don't want to get Involved" attitude....

Good thing there were a few folks present on the train that didn't take that stance...and look at the outcome...