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France train attack

The three young Americans who thwarted a gunman on a Paris-bound passenger train last month got their moment in the Oval Office on September 17, 2015.

President Barack Obama praised Alek Skarlatos, Spencer Stone and Anthony Sadler for teamwork, courage and quick-thinking actions that averted "a real calamity."

He celebrated them as three friends who had been headed for a fun reunion in Paris when they "ended up engaging a potential catastrophic situation and pinning down someone who clearly was intent on doing a lot of harm to a lot of people, inflicting terror on the French people."

The three sat attentively on an Oval Office couch and chair as Obama praised them as "the very best of America."

They previously had been awarded France's highest honor by President Francois Hollande khakis.

The three last month subdued a man with ties to radical Islam who boarded the train with a Kalashnikov rifle, a pistol and a box cutter. A British businessman and a French-American also have been praised for their efforts to stop the gunman. (AP)


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