WoT Men who stopped train attacker awarded France's highest honor

[Housecarl]

U.S. Marines "take down" armed gunman on high speed train in France.
Started by Yogizorchý, 08-21-2015 12:01 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...d-gunman-on-high-speed-train-in-France./page2




For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...-highest-honor/ar-BBm2mO1?ocid=HPCDHP#image=1

Men who stopped train attacker awarded France's highest honor

USA Today
Jane Onyanga-Omara
27 mins ago

http://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/...img?h=623&w=728&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f&x=1053&y=746

French President Francois Holland awarded France's highest honor Monday to three Americans and a Briton who tackled a gunman on a train from Amsterdam to Paris.

Hollande presented the Legion d'Honneur to U.S. nationals Spencer Stone, 23, Alek Skarlatos, 22, Anthony Sadler, 23, and British citizen Chris Norman, 62.

A French citizen who also tackled the man in the incident Friday and who wishes to remain anonymous and a French-American named by Hollande as Mark Moogalian, 51, will also receive the Legion d'Honneur at a later date. Moogalian, who was shot, remains in a hospital.

"'You risked your lives to defend an idea, an idea of liberty, of freedom," Hollande told the men at the ceremony at the Elysee Palace in Paris.

"Since Friday, the entire world admires your courage, your sangfroid, your spirit of solidarity," he 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.”

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel and Jane Hartley, the U.S. Ambassador to France, were among those who attended the ceremony.

U.S. Air Force Airman 1st Class Stone, 23, and his friends Skarlatos, 22, an Oregon National Guardsman, and Sadler, 23, a student at Sacramento State University, were on the high-speed train, which was traveling via Belgium, when a man armed with a Kalashnikov, an automatic Luger pistol and a box cutter raced through the car. The men tackled and subdued the gunman, who was taken into custody in France.

"He seemed like he was ready to fight to the end," Stone said. "So were we." Stone was stabbed in the neck and thumb, which had to be reattached.

Norman, an IT consultant who helped subdue the gunman, said he thought: "OK, I'm probably going to die anyway so let's go," the Guardian reported.

French authorities identified the gunman as Ayoub El-Khazzani, 26, a Moroccan with ties to radical Islam who may have traveled to Syria. His lawyer, Sophie David, said on French TV that her client claims he was just homeless and hungry and wanted to rob the train and then jump out a window.

Contributing: John Bacon

 

[bw]

When they get home our government will charge them with something, anything.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.france24.com/en/20150824-train-attack-heroes-receive-france-legion-honneur-medal-thalys

Train attack heroes awarded France’s Légion d’Honneur

Video by Douglas HERBERT
Text by FRANCE 24 Follow france24_en on twitter
Latest update : 2015-08-24

President François Hollande on Monday bestowed France's highest honour on a group of Americans and a Briton who overpowered a Moroccan gunman on a crowded train bound for Paris.

Hollande pinned the Légion d'Honneur medal on US Airman Spencer Stone, National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos, and their years-long friend Anthony Sadler, who subdued the gunman on Friday as he moved through the train with an assault rifle strapped to his bare chest. A British businessman, Chris Norman, also jumped into the fray.

In a ceremony at the Elysée Palace, the French president saluted the four men for preventing “carnage” on the high-speed train.

The men showed "that faced with terror, we have the power to resist. You also gave a lesson in courage, in will, and thus in hope”, Hollande said.

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

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel and the US Ambassador to France, Jane Hartley, attended the ceremony, along with the head of the French rail firm SNCF.

The American trio, casual in vacation-style polo shirts and khakis against the backdrop of the highly formal presidential palace, appeared slightly overwhelmed as they received France's highest distinction.

The Légion d'Honneur was established by Napoleon in 1802 to commend civilians and soldiers for exceptional merit in the service of France.

"These days you see a lot of celebrities pick up the medal (...), but the actions these men were rewarded for are perhaps the ideals to which Napoleon aspired when he created the award," said FRANCE 24's Douglas Herbert at the Elysée.

Anti-terror investigators are questioning the alleged attacker, 25-year-old Ayoub el Khazzani, who boarded the high-speed train in Brussels armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, a Luger automatic pistol, ammunition and a box-cutter.

Witnesses say he opened fire, injuring a man before being wrestled to the floor and subdued by the three US passengers aided by the Briton.

The gunman had earlier been confronted by a French passenger but managed to get away and fire at least one shot, wounding a French-American traveller in his 50s. Both passengers will also receive the Légion d’Honneur.

'Football and fishing'

Khazzani is said to have told investigators he is "dumbfounded" by accusations he was intending to carry out a terror attack, and insists he was only trying to rob passengers.

He said he merely stumbled upon a weapons stash in a park in Belgium and decided to use it to rob passengers, according to Sophie David, a lawyer assigned to his case when he was taken off the train in Arras, northern France.

What we know about the Thalys gunman

"He is dumbfounded that his act is being linked to terrorism," David told BFM-TV, adding that Khazzani said he was homeless.

Khazzani's father, meanwhile, described his son on Sunday as a "good boy" who preferred talking about "football and fishing" to politics.

"I have no idea what he was thinking and I have not spoken to him for over a year," Mohamed el Khazzani told British newspaper the Daily Telegraph in Algeciras, Spain.

Under French law, suspects in terrorism-related investigations can be questioned for up to 96 hours, meaning Khazzani could be held until Tuesday evening.

Intelligence services in Belgium, France, Germany and Spain have previously flagged him as an Islamic extremist.

A Spanish counter-terrorism source said Khazzani had lived in Spain for seven years until 2014. He came to the attention of Spanish authorities for making hardline speeches defending jihad.

Spanish intelligence services say he went to France, from where he travelled to Syria, but the suspect has reportedly denied going to the conflict-ridden country where the Islamic State group controls swathes of territory.

‘Please do something’

One of the Americans who overpowered him told a press conference on Sunday that if Khazzani had known how to handle guns, he could have killed many people.

"He clearly had no firearms training whatsoever," Alek Skarlatos, 22, told reporters at the US ambassador's residence in Paris.

"If he knew what he was doing or even got lucky and did the right thing, he would have been able to operate through all eight of the (ammunition) magazines and we probably wouldn't be here today along with a lot of other people," the National Guardsman added.


Amateur footage of the attack's immediate aftermath


Student Anthony Sadler, 23, who was travelling with the two off-duty US servicemen, dismissed suggestions that Khazzani was not trying to kill anyone.

"It doesn't take eight magazines (of bullets) to rob a train," he said.

The Americans said they had reservations in the first class carriage where the attack took place, but could not initially find their seats.

They only moved to the carriage half an hour into the journey because the wireless Internet was poor and they were seeking a better connection.

Spencer Stone, 23, who serves in the US Air Force, reached the gunman first and was slashed in the neck and on the eyebrow and almost had his thumb sliced off with a box-cutter.

"The gunman would have been successful if my friend Spencer had not gotten up," said Sadler. "I want that lesson to be learned. In times of terror like that to please do something. Don't just stand by and watch."

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

 

[Housecarl]

There are several ranks within the Legion of Honor, Hollande gave them all the rank of Knight of France or Chevalier, something the other articles didn't clarify. An interesting point regarding the honor, like a recipient of the United States MoH, the recipient is to be saluted first by everyone else no matter his rank....HC

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...654613-f872-48ad-ba81-bb4bf414dd88_story.html

Americans become French knights

By Michael Birnbaum August 24 at 6:15 AM 

BRUSSELS — One of the Americans who prevented a bloodbath on a high-speed European train serves in the Air Force. Another is in the Oregon National Guard. On Monday, the enlisted men became knights, along with two others who took part in the rescue, as French President François Hollande made them Chevaliers of the Legion of Honor, awarding them France’s highest decoration.

In a solemn ceremony held in France’s glittering Elysée Palace, the seat of the presidency, Hollande said the four men had averted a catastrophe when they tackled and trussed a heavily armed man who had opened fire on the train.

The men have resisted being labeled as heroes, saying that they gave little thought to their actions until after the heat of the moment. At the ceremony, the trio of Americans, friends since childhood, dressed modestly in polo shirts and khakis. But Hollande said their coolness under fire was a lesson to all of France — and the world.

“You have shown that in the face of terror, you can resist,” Hollande said before he pinned the ribbons on the men’s chests. “So you have given us a lesson of courage, of determination and therefore of hope.”

“There were over 500 passengers on that train. Ayoub el-Khazzani possessed over 300 bullets. And we realize now how close we were to a tragedy and a massacre,” Hollande said, formally identifying the suspect in the shooting for the first time, a Moroccan man just short of his 26th birthday.

The men who were awarded the medals were Airman 1st Class Spencer Stone, of California; Specialist Alek Skarlatos, just returned from a deployment to Afghanistan; their childhood friend Anthony Sadler, and British businessman Chris Norman. Hollande said he also intended to award the honor to Mark Moogalian, a dual French-American citizen who also took part in the rescue and was severely wounded, and a French citizen who was the first to try to disarm the shooter and has asked to remain anonymous.

Hollande pinned the red ribbons and five-pointed medal on each man’s chest, then kissed each on one cheek, then the other. The two servicemen plan to proceed with their families to Germany for further medical treatment, while Sadler plans to return home to California to start his senior year of college, they said Sunday.

Khazzani has said in police interrogations that he intended only to rob the train, not to commit a mass killing. But French and Belgian authorities are investigating his actions as a thwarted terrorist act, and Spanish authorities had flagged him for his ties to a militant Islamist mosque there before he left Spain in early 2014.

The case has raised tough questions about Europe’s security preparedness. Khazzani had been under watch in three countries because of his possible links to militancy. But he was able to get onto the high-speed train without any security checks. Europe’s high-speed rail network is a vital part of the continent’s vast train system, packed with passengers from all walks of life and transporting far more people than airplanes.

But most trains require no identification, bag screening or metal detectors to get on — and security experts say changing that would be a towering difficulty, given the thousands of people who stream through the system every hour.

Sunday, in Stone’s first account of the events that nearly severed his thumb and left him with an eye injury, he gave a matter-of-fact description of the struggle.

“He seemed like he was ready to fight to the end. So were we,” Stone said.

 

[Dennis Olson]

And will soon be forcibly discharged from the military for daring to stop one of Ovomit's people from carrying out a terrorist attack.


You heard it here first.

 

[CTFIREBATTCHIEF]

and not a word, ONE friggin word, from that asshole in chief who currently is stinking up the whitehouse. You're right Dennis, they probably will come up with something to charge the airman and national guardsman with. That worthless pole smoking moron should send Air Force one to bring those guys back home.

The five men, who took this animal down, are the true definition of a Hero.

As for the French President and what he did. all I can say is

"Vive la France"

 

[MetalMan]

They will be charged with misappropriation of government assets in the violation of religious expression of Muslims. One of them even wore a necklace with a cross, a clear violation of Muslim religious sensitivities.

 

[Illini Warrior]

the problem here .... that French award isn't from the grateful French people who appreciates their brave efforts and gallantry in action ....

the award is from the French gooberment that's closely aligned with Obammy .... any person or gooberment that supports Obammy's NON-EFFORT in regard to stopping the worldwide muslim terrorism - is nothing but total BS

it's like a Jew getting a medal from Mussolini ....

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/0...anything-new-hero-in-high-speed-train-attack/

French-American who would 'give anything' new hero in high-speed train attack

Published August 25, 2015
·Associated Press

PARIS – An American teacher and artist who has lived in France for more than two decades is emerging as another hero in the high-speed train attack thwarted by a group of quick-thinking men.

Mark Moogalian remained hospitalized Tuesday in the northern city of Lille with a bullet wound in his neck and back, and his sister in Virginia said the reports that he was shot while trying to wrest the assault rifle from the gunman were in character.

Julia Allen told NBC News that her brother "would give anything for anybody."

Moogalian's wife, Isabelle, told Europe-1 radio that U.S. Airman Spencer Stone came across the wounded Moogalian and stanched the bleeding by holding his finger on the wound. She said Moogalian's life is not in danger.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
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http://news.yahoo.com/heroes-foiled-train-gunman-scheduled-rest-college-071717343.html

Heroes who foiled train gunman scheduled for rest, college

Associated Press
By JANIE HAR
3 hours ago

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — So what do you do when a trip on a high-speed train in Europe suddenly turns you and your buddies into international heroes?


Related Stories

1. US train attack hero to be nominated for Airman's Medal AFP
2. Americans, Briton who thwarted attack get France's top honor Associated Press
3. Five who foiled an attack on a European train AFP
4. Relatives proud of 3 Americans who subdued gunman on train Associated Press
5. 'Wrong place, right people': heroes of the French train shooting Reuters

Sign a book deal? Take meetings with Hollywood executives? Pose for magazine features?

Perhaps yes to all three, eventually, but not just yet for the three American men who earned the thanks of many nations on Friday when they tackled and subdued a gunman on a train traveling from Amsterdam to Paris.

For now, U.S. Airman Spencer Stone, 23, is in Germany for military observation and treatment. Oregon National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos, 22, is at his side. The third man, Anthony Sadler, 23, is scheduled to start his senior year at Sacramento State on Monday, although university officials are waiting to confirm when he will return home.

Sacramento State President Robert S. Nelsen said eager donors are lining up to help Sadler with scholarship money for his last year studying kinesiology. The university is thrilled, he said, to have such a courageous man on campus.

"We want to have a celebration," Nelsen said. "But we want to have the type of celebration he wants to have."

.. View gallery
CORRECTS SADLER’S SCHOOL TO SACRAMENTO STATE UNIVERSITY, …
CORRECTS SADLER’S SCHOOL TO SACRAMENTO STATE UNIVERSITY, INSTEAD OF SACRAMENTO UNIVERSITY - U.S. Nat …

As would the City of Sacramento, which is planning a parade for all three men, who grew up in the area. Besides Sadler, Stone and Skarlatos grew up in nearby Carmichael, California. In fact, the three friends likely won't lack for invites to fetes and parades, big and small.

"We'd like to invite them to a rally to honor them and give them time to interact with current students," said Trent Allen, spokesman for the San Juan Unified School District in Sacramento County, California, where Skarlatos and Stone attended high school. "That's on our wish list."

Skarlatos, who moved to Roseburg, Oregon, as a teenager, returned from deployment to Afghanistan in July. He is studying at the local community college and hopes for a career in law enforcement, said his stepmother Karen Skarlatos.

He plans to stay in Germany with Stone until he is released, she said Monday. Then they're being flown straight to New York, where she assumes they will sit for interviews.

"They really want to have a day that they can have to themselves in Germany, but whether or not they're going to get that, I don't know," Karen Skarlatos said.

.. View gallery
CORRECTS SADLER’S SCHOOL TO SACRAMENTO STATE UNIVERSITY, …
CORRECTS SADLER’S SCHOOL TO SACRAMENTO STATE UNIVERSITY, INSTEAD OF SACRAMENTO UNIVERSITY - French P …

The friends had met up in Europe on vacation and were on their way to Paris by train when they spotted a man carrying an automatic rifle. In a tale now recounted around the world, Stone tackled the man, Skarlatos wrestled the gun away, and all three beat him unconscious. A fourth man, a Briton, helped tie up the gunman.

The gunman has been identified as 26-year-old Moroccan Ayoub El-Khazzani and is being questioned by French counterterrorism police outside Paris.

On Monday morning, the men received France's highest honor from President Francois Hollande, along with a kiss on both cheeks.

Sadler "is an international hero, and so are his two friends," said Nelsen, the president of Sacramento State. "They are longtime friends, they did something that took incredible courage, and I think all of us can learn something from them."

___

Angela Charlton reported from Paris, and Eugene Johnson reported from Seattle, Washington.

___

An earlier version of this story had an incorrect name for French President Francois Hollande.

___

I'd argue that it was "combat related", particularly since they're also talking about the Purple Heart being awarded....Housecarl

For links see article source.....
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http://news.yahoo.com/us-servicemen-foiled-train-attack-travel-germany-200226851.html

US train attack hero to be nominated for Airman's Medal

AFP
12 hours ago

Washington (AFP) - The US serviceman who was wounded while foiling a gun attack on a train in Europe will be nominated for the Air Force's highest medal for non-combat bravery, military officials said Monday.

Related Stories

1. French investigators question train gunman AFP
2. France awards Legion of Honor to train-attack heroes MarketWatch
3. Americans receive France's highest honor for averting 'veritable carnage' Christian Science Monitor
4. Don't ever 'stand by', US 'heroes' plead after train attack AFP
5. Americans, Briton who thwarted attack get France's top honor Associated Press

The airman, Spencer Stone, and his friend Alek Skarlatos, a National Guardsman, helped wrestle to the floor the assailant who opened fire after boarding a high-speed train in Brussels bound for Paris, witnesses said.

Stone suffered hand and eye injuries in the incident, which has already earned him France's Legion of Honor, the country's highest award.

"Their fearlessness, courage and selflessness should inspire all of us," Secretary of the US Air Force Deborah Lee James said, as she announced that Stone's unit was nominating him for the Airman's Medal.

"What the gunman didn't expect, however, was a confrontation with our very own Captain America."

James said Stone -- who traveled Monday with Skarlatos to Germany, where he is to be treated at a US military hospital -- is "doing quite well but needs some rest."

Stone could also be considered for the Purple Heart award, if the thwarted train attack is characterized by French law enforcement as a terror-related event.

Traditionally awarded only to troops killed or wounded in combat, the Purple Heart was in April awarded to those wounded in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, after it was deemed an act of international "terrorism."

French President Francois Hollande on Monday awarded the Legion of Honor, the country's highest honor, to Stone, Skarlatos, their friend Anthony Sadler and a British business consultant. Stone wore a sling during the award ceremony.

Anti-terror investigators are questioning the alleged attacker, 25-year-old Ayoub El Khazzani, who authorities said boarded the train with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, an automatic pistol, ammunition and a box cutter.


View Comments (13) .

 

[changed]

So, American soldiers saving French people again?

 

[Housecarl]

So, American soldiers saving French people again?

American soldiers and civilians with a Brit. Thing is it has been reported that the train conductors, who weren't armed, ran for it and locked themselves into a compartment when this jumped off.

 

[Blue 5]

I don't know why, but it really bugs me that neither of those two military personnel were clean shaven when they received their awards, and also neither one was wearing a uniform. It's a minor thing, I suppose, but nonetheless as an Airman myself that bothered me.

 

[Bardou]

Okay, these guys did the right thing, they are heroes and they've had their day in the limelight. How long is this praising and news story going to carry on? It reminds me of that SNL skit with Eddie Murphy, "Buckwheats Been Shot!" I can't turn the radio on and no matter what station, the story gets told again. This is why I hate elections, the endless TV and radio ads, junk mail filling the landfills. I feel media drained.

 

[Housecarl]

Okay, these guys did the right thing, they are heroes and they've had their day in the limelight. How long is this praising and news story going to carry on? It reminds me of that SNL skit with Eddie Murphy, "Buckwheats Been Shot!" I can't turn the radio on and no matter what station, the story gets told again. This is why I hate elections, the endless TV and radio ads, junk mail filling the landfills. I feel media drained.

Well Bardou, I'm posting them in part as a compare/contrast between Europe/France and the US, part as an FYI as to the events and the clarifications of what happened and part because these guys deserve the limelight unlike the usual cavalcade of MSM created celebs.

As to the MSM broadcast coverage, they're playing both catch up, compared to here, and are using this to take up airtime to not cover a bunch of other stuff.

 

[Be Well]

Also, Bardou, the Moroccan was suited up to kill lots and lots of people. Lots and Lots.

http://www.breitbart.com/national-s...-needs-to-recognize-terrorism-for-what-it-is/

MSNBC video of interview, can't embed.

TRAIN HERO’S FATHER SAYS P.C. CROWD ‘NEEDS TO RECOGNIZE TERRORISM FOR WHAT IT IS

JOHN HAYWARD 24 Aug 2015

Emanuel Skarlatos, father of National Guard specialist — and now French Legion d’Honneur recipient —Alek Skarlatos, appeared on MSNBC’s News Nation with Tamron Hall to discuss his son’s role in thwarting a jihad attack on a high-speed train en route to Paris, saving dozens of lives. Clearly the apple did not fall far from the tree in this family.

The elder Skarlatos said he wasn’t sure when he would see his son again, guessing that he would spend a little time at the Ramstein Air Force Base hospital in Germany getting his injuries looked at before he would be able to return home.

His closing statement is the part of the interview that’s going viral. “Can I just say one quick thing?” Mr. Skarlatos asked, after Hall thanked him for his time. “It’s better to die like a lion that be slaughtered like sheep. And this terrorist coward deserved what he got, and the PC crowd needs to recognize terrorism for what it is. And I thank you for having me on.”

The people on that train were very fortunate Alek Skarlatos and his friends, along with the anonymous French citizen who first engaged the terrorist and others who joined in the struggle, were in the right place at the right time. The train heroes, in turn, were fortunate that the would-be killer’s gun appears to have jammed.

If not for some remarkable marksmanship in Garland, Texas, the “Everybody Draw Mohammed Art Exhibit” would have turned into an Islamist bloodbath. If not for the heroes of United 93, 9/11 would have been even worse.

We cannot rely on such good fortune to protect us from jihad killers. As the IRA famously declared after narrowly failing to assassinate British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher: “Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always.”

The courage of these heroes should inspire us all, but we also need something better from anti-terrorism authorities across the Western world than that every “lone wolf” was known to them ages ago, but nothing happened except a few dossiers being tossed back and forth between agencies. U.S. authorities became noticeably more aggressive about locating potential threats and taking preemptive action, after the Garland shootings.

There aren’t any easy answers to the threat of organized, fanatical terrorism, but as Emanuel Skarlatos helpfully reminds us, there are some wrong answers. We’ll never be safe from a threat we can’t even discuss clearly.