They played together, fought an attacker together and will be honored together.
Childhood friends Anthony Sadler, Spencer Stone and Alek Skarlatos, who pounced and subdued a gunman aboard a packed train, will be awarded the French Legion of Honor on Monday.
President Francois Hollande will honor the three Americans — along with a fellow British passenger Chris Norman– with the nation’s highest recognition.
The group will be recognized for its bravery in averting a massacre Friday aboard a high-speed train zipping from Amsterdam to Paris.
Napoleon Bonaparte established the award in 1802 to recognize exceptional leaders and unusual achievements.
‘He never said a word’
The four were aboard the train when gunfire erupted. Shortly afterward, a shirtless man with a gun slung over his shoulder appeared in their train car.
“He never said a word,” Sadler said. ‘At that time, it was either do something or die.”
A fierce struggle ensued.
“He kept pulling more weapons left and right,” Stone said, his arm in a sling. “He seemed like he was ready to fight to the end. So were we.”
They grabbed the suspect, punched him, choked him and hit him with his own guns. They finally subdued him and tied him before the train pulled up in Arras, northern France.
The confrontation left Stone, a U.S. Air Force member who was the first to tackle him, with wounds in the head and neck, and his thumb nearly cut off. He was hospitalized for a day and released Saturday.
“It is clear that their heroic actions may have prevented a far worse tragedy,” U.S. President Barack Obama said.
Another passenger — a French national who has not gone public — also tackled the gunman, and will be honored at a later date.
Suspect says he intended to rob train
The alleged gunman, identified as Moroccan national Ayoub El Khazzani, said he only intended to conduct a robbery, not a terror act, his attorney Sophie David told CNN affiliate BFMTV.
David said her client told her he found the firearms in a public garden next to a train station in Brussels, Belgium.
But authorities pointed to a bigger concern, saying with the kind of firepower he had, he may have been planning a massacre.
He had an AK-47 assault weapon with nine magazines of ammunition, a Luger pistol with extra ammo and a box cutter, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.
“The guy had a lot of ammo,” said Alek Skarlatos, a National Guardsman based in Oregon, one of the passengers who subdued him. “His intentions were pretty clear.”
Spain, France knew about suspect
Spanish officials says the suspect’s family moved to Spain from Morocco in 2007.
He was linked to investigations into radical Islamist networks, a senior European counterterrorism official said. His DNA was on file with Spanish authorities, French media reported.
There are indications he traveled from Europe to Turkey between May and July, probably to try to join up with ISIS in Syria, a senior European counterterrorism official told CNN terror analyst Paul Cruickshank.
ISIS operatives are using Turkey as a base to redirect European extremists trying to travel to Syria to launch attacks back home, according to Cruickshank.
Link to ISIS fighters?
Investigators have yet to make a final determination on El Khazzani’s travel. It ‘s unclear whether he made it to Syria, the official said.
He was likely linked to ISIS fighters in Turkey who are believed to have directed an Algerian student to launch attacks in Paris, according to the official
It’s unclear what he did to attract the attention of the Spanish authorities. Spanish police alerted the French that he was preparing to travel to the latter country last year, Cazeneuve said
Beyond that, there appears to be disagreement between French and Spanish sources about who knew what and when.
The suspect is in custody undergoing interrogations.
