It’s a great way to start this week to see our three brave Americans, along with a British businessman, being honored by French President François Hollande for their act of heroism that most certainly prevented a huge massacre on a train from Amsterdam to Paris on Friday.
Here’s the raw footage of the event, showing National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos, Airman 1st Class Spencer Stone, their civilian friend Anthony Sadler, and British businessman Chris Stone receiving medals for their heroism from Hollande:
LA TIMES – France said a big “merci” to three Americans and a Briton who overpowered a gunman on a high-speed train, giving the four men the country’s highest honor in a ceremony at the presidential palace Monday.
Spencer Stone, 23, Alek Skarlatos, 22, and Anthony Sadler, 23, three friends on a European vacation, and British businessman Chris Norman, 62, were awarded the Legion d’Honneur by French President François Hollande at the Elysée Palace.
The three young Americans, who have been as hailed heroes around the world, looked slightly embarrassed as Hollande pinned the ribboned medals on their polo shirts before embracing them and kissing them on each cheek.
The trio wrestled an AK-47-toting gunman to the floor after he allegedly opened fire on a train from Amsterdam to Paris on Friday afternoon. The bare-chested assailant also had a Luger handgun and a box cutter, which he used to slash Stone’s head and slice his hand, nearly severing his thumb. But Stone and Skarlatos, both stocky American servicemen, and Sadler were able to disarm the attacker and beat him unconscious.
The attacker has been identified as Ayoub El Khazzani, a 25-year-old Moroccan national who is reportedly on security watch lists in four European countries for his alleged links to radical Islamic groups.
Hollande described the attack as a work of “terrorism” and credited the men with averting a bloodbath.
“We are here to honor four men who, thanks to their bravery, managed to save lives. They showed what could be done in terrible circumstances,” Hollande said. “In the name of France, I would like to thank you. The whole world admires your courage, your sangfroid, your responsibility.
“Your heroism should be an example to us all and a source of inspiration,” the French leader said. “Faced with an evil — and that’s what it was — called terrorism, there is a good, called humanity.”
Hollande said the gunman had “enough arms and ammunition to provoke a real carnage” on the train.
“And that’s what he would have done if you hadn’t taken every risk, including that to your own lives, and overpowered him,” Hollande told the four men.
Here’s a little more about the brave Americans:
Stone, a U.S. airman stationed at Lajes Air Base in the Azores, where he worked as a medical technician in pediatrics and with expectant mothers, suffered cuts to his hand, arm and the back of the head. He underwent surgery to reattach his thumb and was released from the hospital Saturday evening. On Monday, his arm remained in a sling as he received the Legion d’Honneur, an award instituted by Napoleon in the 19th century.
Skarlatos, from Roseburg, Ore., returned from Afghanistan in June and reenlisted as a rifleman in the National Guard. Sadler is a senior at Cal State Sacramento and was visiting Europe for the first time.