biodieselman
Well-Known Member
When others are fleeing danger...
Americans rush towards danger.
Americans rush towards danger.
US soldiers prevent French train massacre: latest
Attacker armed with Kalashnikov shouted "give me back my gun" as he was foiled by three Americans, including two off-duty servicemen - follow live updates
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Here's a French word that Americans will no doubt be pleased to learn. It's "sangfroid", or coolness under pressure, and was used by the French interior minister Bernaard Cazeneuve to praise the actions of the US soldiers.
"Without their sangfroid we could have been confronted with a terrible drama," he said.
The attacker on the train between Amsterdam and Paris yesterday pleaded with the Americans who overpowered him to "Give me back my gun".
Anthony Sadler, an American who was travelling with the two servicemen told AFP: "We didn't know if the gun wasn't working or anything like that. Spencer [one of the servicemen] just ran anyway and if anyone had gotten shot, it would have been Spencer and we're just very lucky that nobody got killed".
He added: "He didn't say anything. He was just telling us to give back his gun. 'Give me back my gun! Give me back my gun!' But we just carried on beating him up and immobilised him and that was it."
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Spencer Stone from Carmichael, California, remains hospitalized Saturday after being stabbed with boxcutters by the attacker. The Pentagon said the injury was not life-threatening.
The other serviceman is Alek Skarlatos, a National Guardsman from Roseburg, Oregon, who had returned from a deployment to Afghanistan in July.
He's pictured below, centre, alongside two other passengers on the train who were given medals by the mayor of Arras for their part in averting the disaster.
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"We heard a gunshot, and we heard glass breaking behind us, and saw a train employee sprint past us down the aisle," He said.
His two friends then ran at the gunman as he entered the compartment and began trying to cock his weapons.
"As he was cocking it to shoot it, Alek just yells,
'Spencer, go!' And Spencer runs down the aisle," Mr Sadler said. "Spencer makes first contact, he tackles the guy, Alek wrestles the gun away from him, and the gunman pulls out a box cutter and slices Spencer a few times. And the three of us beat him until he was unconscious."
Another passenger, Briton Chris Norman, helped tie the gunman up, and Stone then helped another passenger who had been wounded in the throat and losing blood, Mr Sadler said.
"The gunman never said a word," he added.
Mr Stone is with the Air Force stationed in the Azores, while Mr Skarlatos, a 22-year-old National Guardsman, had returned from a deployment in Afghanistan in July, according to his step-mother Karen Skarlatos, who spoke with her step-son immediately after the incident. "He sounded fine, but he was intense - he sounded like he had just thwarted a terrorist attack."
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The suspect is a 26-year-old Moroccan, according to Sliman Hamzi, according to an official with the Alliance police union. He is said to have been carrying a Kalashnikov, a knife, an automatic pistol and cartridges.
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