France awards its top honor to 3 Americans, Briton who stopped train attack

On Monday, French President Francois Holland bestowed France's highest award, the Legion of Honor, on three Americans and one British businessman who together tackled a well-armed gunman on a high-speed train on Friday. Before pinning the medal on U.S. Airman Spencer Stone, 23, and National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos, 22, he noted that the two old friends who thwarted the gunman and likely prevented a massacre are soldiers, "but on Friday you were simply passengers."

The alleged attacker, Ayoub El-Khazzani, a 26-year-old Moroccan, was arrested after Stone and Skarlatos, plus their friend Anthony Sadler and British citizen Chris Norman, subdued him with his own assault rifle. "Since Friday, the entire world admires your courage, your sangfroid, your spirit of solidarity," Hollande told the four men. "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."

On Sunday, the three longtime American friends cited the role serendipity played in their quashing the attack. They were only in the car with the gunman because they couldn't find their assigned seats after boarding the train in Amsterdam, and the first seat they found were inadequate, according to Sadler, 23. "We decided to get up because the WiFi wasn’t so good on that car.... We were like, 'We have a ticket to first class. We might as well go sit in first class.'"

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Stone, whose thumb was nearly severed in the scuffle, said that he was awoken from a deep sleep by Skarlatos, who told him to "go." The gunman "seemed like he was ready to fight to the end," Stone said. "So were we." Skarlatos said that the attacker's incompetence helped, too. "He clearly had no firearms training whatsoever," he said. “If he had known what he was doing, or even just got lucky and did the right thing, he would have been able to operate through all eight of those magazines. We probably wouldn't be here today, along with a lot of other people."