US Airman: Train Attacker Was Ready To Fight To The End [Video]

By R. Siva Kumar - 25 Aug '15 09:15AM

Mark Moogalian could not receive his Legion of Honor as he was in hospital, Monday, when four men were honored for overpowering a terror suspect on a French train, according to cnn.

Moogalian, the French-American academic, 51, tried to snatch the suspect's rifle, however, the man shot Moogalian in the neck with a Luger pistol, said his wife, Isabelle Risacher. Moogalian is slated to get his Legion of Honour after he recovers.

He was named publicly on Monday after Americans Anthony Sadler, Spencer Stone and Alek Skarlaton received the Legion of Honor, France's highest recognition.

British passenger Chris Norman, who helped them to attack the terror suspect was also honoured at the élysée Palace.

"By their courage, they saved lives," President François Hollande said. "They gave us an example of what is possible to do in these kinds of situations."

The heavily armed man was taken down on a passenger train that sped through Belgium, according to a US Airman Spencer Stone. He explained on Sunday how a huge crisis was aborted two days earlier. An assault rifle was tied to his bare chest, and he appeared to be "ready to fight to the end," according to yahoo.

He added, "So were we."

Three gunmen described the drama on Friday in an Amsterdam-to-Paris fast train.

Spencer Stone, 23 years old, explained that he was just emerging from a deep sleep when the gunman showed up.

Another friend, Alek Skarlatos, a 22-year-old National Guardsman who has just returned from Afghanistan "just hit me on the shoulder and said 'Let's go."'

There was a gunman, 26-year-old Moroccan Ayoub El-Khazzani, who was detained and questioned by French counterterrorism cops just outside Paris. French and Spanish authorities give the version that El-Khazzani is an Islamic terrorist. On the other hand, El-Khazzani's lawyer was firm that he was only a homeless person trying to rob passengers "in order to feed himself".

There are a lot of pertinent questions about his attack. How did a man who had been "on the radar of all three countries" manage to board the train unbothered but full of guns?

Skarlatos said El-Khazzani "clearly had no firearms training whatsoever," but if he "even just got lucky and did the right thing he would have been able to operate through all eight of those magazines and we would've all been in trouble, and probably wouldn't be here today, along with a lot of other people."

He did make all the friends snap into attention due to what Skarlatos said was "gut instinct."

Their past training "mostly kicked in after the assailant was already subdued," he said.

"We just kind of acted. There wasn't much thinking going on," he said, at least on my end." Stone replied with a chuckle, "None at all."

Stone and Skarlatos rushed in to tackle him and confiscate his gun, while another, Anthony Sadler, 23, also came to help.

"All three of us started punching" him, Stone said, even as he choked him unconscious. A British businessman also joined them.

Stone, of Carmichael, California, narrated the events at a live news conference at the U.S. ambassador's place in Paris, along with Sadler, another senior at Sacramento State University in California, and Skarlatos, of Roseburg, Oregon.

El-Khezzani climbed on in Brussels with an automatic pistol, loaded magazines and the box cutter. He was submitted to custody in the northern French town of Arras, where the train was rerouted.

El-Khezzani's lawyer said her client doesn't "understand the suspicions, media attention or even that a person was wounded". He doesn't know that there had been gunshots. "He is dumbfounded that his action is being characterized as terrorism," she said.

He called himself "homeless" and David said he looked "very, very thin" and "with a very wild look in his eyes."

"He thought of a holdup to be able to feed himself, to have money," she said on BFM-TV, then "shoot out a window and jump out to escape."

However, he was overpowered quickly. "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.

Sadler gave a moral for the story. "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."