Send the Marines
This is quite a headline, and quite a story:
“Unarmed US Marines foil suspected terrorist attack onboard high-speed train between Amsterdam and Paris after they take down Kalashnikov-wielding Moroccan gunman known to intelligence services”
A group of unarmed US Marines on board a high-speed train between Amsterdam and Paris foiled a terrorist attack after a gunman opened fire with an assault rifle, wounding three people.
The 26-year-old Moroccan national, who was known to security services, came out of the toilet brandishing the gun and opened fire. Fortunately, two US Marines were nearby and overpowered him before he could massacre passengers.
The suspected terrorist had at least nine full magazines of ammunition holding almost 300 rounds. He was also carrying a knife.
Unfortunately, one of the Marines was shot and is believed to be in a critical condition.
…French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve praised the Marines for their timely intervention.
He said: ‘Thanks to them we have averted a drama.
‘(The Americans were) particularly courageous and showed extreme bravery in extremely difficult circumstances.’
That’s what Marines do.
I hope that at some point we get more information on exactly how the gunman was overpowered. It would be very instructive.
Oh, and this:
…Interior ministry spokesman Pierre Henry Brandet said:”…Talking about a terrorist motive would be premature at the moment.”
Sure.
[Hat tip: Ace.]
[ADDENDUM: So far (as of 5:50 PM 8/21/15) there’s not much about this from the American press. Let’s see if there ever is.]
[UPDATE 7 PM: There does seem to be a fair amount of coverage now. Good.]
Prayers for the wounded Marine and his family.
We’ll be lucky if these guys aren’t eventually charged with some offense given the current atmosphere.
The “group of Marines” was only two and may have been (probably was) one Marine and one British soldier. The Marine was shot, the British soldier was stabbed, and French actor Jean-Hugues Anglade was injured when he smashed the glass on the alarm box.
The two military men heard what they recognized as the sound of an AK-47 being loaded and a round chambered coming from the lavatory. They confronted the exiting Moroccan who fired on the American and struck out with the knife at the Brit. The Marine in in critical condition at a French hospital.
I read it first at DM, but at the NYPost it is now the feature story.
This could easily have been a 100+ casualty attack.
Can you imagine the Marines heard the terrorist loading his Kalashnikov in the bathroom and came up with a plan? Unbelievable.
Special prayers for our two wounded Marines. Hope to hear good news soon about the Marine in critical condition.
“This is the AK-47 assault rifle, the preferred weapon of your enemy, and it makes a very distinctive sound when fired at you, so remember it”
“Improvise, Adapt, Overcome”
Gunny Highway-Heartbreak Ridge 1986
Luckily the train was in France. Had they done that in Afghanistan or Iraq they could be up on charges now.
Yes, I’ve been following this story early on.
TheGatewaypundit has had the best set of freshly added LINKS, some in French
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/08/breaking-report-two-u-s-marines-wounded-stopping-suspected-terror-attack-on-french-train/
Meanwhile, America is run by a Regime that intentionally gets Marines killed every day, in order to “clear the field” for an eventual invasion in the future.
Two Marines against one (alleged) moooslime!
NOT FAIR!
Where is the outrage?
All I can say is “Semper Fi!”
Orson:
A quote from that Gateway Pundit piece:
““According to our information, two American soldiers would have heard the noise in the toilet of the breech of a heavy weapon being loaded. They intervened to subdue the man before he could use the weapon in the train. The two soldiers were injured, one of a gunshot, the other with a knife, according to the prosecutor.”
Well, true to form, the French media is also downplaying this. Here are the headlines from Le Monde’s front page:
A man opens fire in a Thalys, two wounded
The shooter, who boarded the train in a Brussels station, was subdued Friday by two American passengers and arrested in Arras train station (Pas-de-Calais).
The article itself doesn’t mention that the Americans were Marines.
There were 554 passengers on board. This could have been a blood bath.
The marines didn’t fight in Europe in WWII. The only marines on D-day were the detachments in battleships and heavy cruisers supporting the invasion.
The reason?
The army thought they grabbed all the headlines during WWI, like at Belleau Wood.
And today. Semper Fi, Devil Dogs.
http://www.duffelblog.com/2012/09/everyday-im-shufflin-in-the-lz/
Steve57,
That is an old Army joke about the Marines.
How do you tell the difference between a Soldier and a Marine in combat?
The Marine is the one being followed by a PAO (public affairs officer).
Marines being Marines.
Steve57 I would like to see the provenance of your assertion. I am partial to Marines, having being trained by them, and having had a number under my command; but, I do not think there were nearly enough Marines to handle the Pacific and take on Europe. Why the conspiracy theory?
Europe was a massive war, requiring huge Army groups, large tank forces, heavy artillery, and massive logistics. All told numbering well over a million men.
The Pacific was an altogether different undertaking, consisting of a number of discrete campaigns. It required different strategy, and a different force make up. The Marines were well suited to it. The Marine numbers during their campaigns were generally in the thousands, with a peak of about 70,000 engaged at Iwo Jima.
I was in te Navy and we used to joke that sailors blow each other to hell like gentlemen but the marines always get into a vulgar brawl.
“That’s what Marines do.”
Yep, that is what they do. And they even did it unarmed – now that’s cool.
“Always honor the Marines, boys. They did our heavy lifting.” That’s what Dad would say as we drove south through Camp Pendleton on our way to relatives near San Diego. Pop was with the 58th Bomb Wing of B-29s on Tinian’s West Field. Many young jarheads were camped around the island preparing for the invasion of the Japanese home islands when the 2-A-Bombs ended the war. They would have the chance to become old men after all. THANK GOD FOR THE ATOM BOMB.
Oldflyer, when you’re right you are right. That was a bit of folklore I had accepted as true.
My apologies.
I have no excuses.
I’m the proud dad of a Marine. Job well done and Semper Fi. Prayers for your recovery
A “drama,” huh? That’s what it would have been? Not a murderous attack? Not a catastrophe? Not a tragedy?
Not ANOTHER (frightening) TERRORIST ATTACK.
No, it was avoided by some [American] [and very heroic] Marines… who were, by the way, seriously wounded… as well as another person.
Thank goodness it turned out to be a minor fracas, right?
No, not right. What the hell is with these people???!!!
This guy was on the terrorism radar. But not considered so great a risk that he required monitoring… OOPS!
What will it take for liberals to acknowledge that TERRORIST attacks are no longer overseas problems for soldiers in some far away places to take care of? That it can be your place of work, the way you travel or get
(cont’d)
…to work, at the market where you buy groceries or dinner, at the mall… Are childrens’ schools next? (Don’t really want to think of that… Beslan still haunts me..but it set a precedent. Afraid its only a matter of time before terrorist crazies remember it. And the round-the-world headlines such barbarism garnered when the Chechens did it in Russia? Which is just the thing terrorists want…Best PR they can get.
What does it take for liberal government officials (in Europe, here,
Everywhere…anywhere…. to “get” that murderous terrorist attacks are not bizarre anomales,.. They are exactly what they seem to be upon first glance.
They scream to be identified, as do those who carry them out.
And ignorance, denial, looking the other way is — obviously not going to stop any of it. It spurs these guys on…
Couple of points: One report had it that the jarheads saw the guy getting ready to board and figured he looked sketchy so they followed him. If true, that would be profiling.
Also, presuming he didn’t get on the train with an AK, somebody left it in the head. That would have to be railroad crew.
There is a folding stock model of the AK. Maybe somebody can tell me what it is. I heard it’s the AK50. Even a folding stock AK would make a clumsy bundle in a gym bag or something. It wouldn’t swing like a pile of clothes, or clunk into a door frame like old towels….
No official at the station(s) asked to see? Not likely. So the most likely answer is somebody else put it there, somebody who got it aboard when no one was around, or in parts and assembled it.
All Marines are trained infantrymen, even their pilots. I served for two years in a training squadron at Pensacola where we had both Navy and Marine instructors. The Marines were all very proud that they had completed basic infantry school. They considered we Navy “pukes” to be worthless unless we were in our airplanes. I really gravitated to their Espris d’Corps. They were warriors. I still correspond by e-mail with one of them, an outstanding pilot and officer.
All this is to point out that Marines are not your average Joe Sixpaks. They are specially selected, superbly trained, and never forget that, “Once a Marine, always a Marine.” Thus, the actions of our Marines on that train in France are what would be expected of any Marine. Thank God they were there.
Profiling? As in biased, racist, and unacceptable?
When alert and trained people use their brains, training and experience to deduce that certain persons are suspect and worthy of close observation, that is simply smarts and practicallity at work and the most practical means of spotting potentially dangerous or lawbreaking persons and protecting the general public.
It is not socially unacceptable “profiling,” despite the rants of the Left who claim that “profiling” is but the result of bias and bigotry and is the reason that the number of Blacks and Latinos in prison far outweighs their proportionate numbers among the population as a whole. (Never mind the proportion of their population thatcommits crimes).
And God Forbid those charged with protecting the public from Extremist Muslim terrorists use logic and deduction, i.e. knowledge and experience based on fact. that most of those who have thus far attempted and/or succeeded in carrying out terrorist attacks in the name of Allah have been (mostly) relatively dark-eyed, dark-haired males who have attended certain mosques, travelled overseas to Middle Eastern countries known to have terrorist training camps, or have other known communications and/or association with known terrorists, and therefore they may focus on young, dark-haired, dark-eyed young men
The morning arrives first in New Zealand. Perhaps that why this newspaper story on the attack and its aftermath show a photo with two young Americans and a middle-aged Brit with medals “for their bravery” – ALREADY! (French honor, so fast?)
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/europe/71358040/Shooting-on-high-speed-train-wounds-two-Marine-overpowers-shooter
SOME lines from the story:
Chris Norman, a 62-year-old British consultant, told reporters he had been sitting in the same carriage as the Americans when they heard a shot.
“I looked up and saw a guy carrying an AK-47 or at least I assume it was some kind of machine-gun,” he said. “It could have been a real carnage, there’s no question about that.”
Alek Skarlatos, a 22-year-old member of the US National Guard from Oregon, said his friend, who is also in the military, had been injured while he grappled with the gunman. They eventually got the attacker under control, Norman said.
“I just got back from Afghanistan last month, and this was my vacation from Afghanistan,” Skarlatos said.
Passenger Christina Cathleen Coons, of New York, described the drama in car 12 of the train in an interview with Ouest France newspaper.
“I heard shots, most likely two, and a guy collapsed,” she is quoted as saying.
Coons, identified as a 28-year-old vacationing in Europe, said a window broke above one woman’s head. “A guy fell to the floor and had blood everywhere,” she is quoted as saying.
She described lying on the floor herself and taking photos with her phone.
“I thought there would be a shootout in the train,” the newspaper quotes her as saying. Then, “people came to take care of him”.
British media cited a Foreign Office official saying no British national had been injured, as had been previously reported by the French interior ministry.
There were 550 sheep (passengers), 3 sheepdogs (US military) and one wolf (a deranged Muslim) on that train. The sheepdogs protected the flock today. Europeans need to be grateful that our military runs towards danger and protects their weasely asses.
I have a friend who retired from the Army as a Lt Col. He was a U.S. army liaison with NATO for three years. He has stated that most of the standing armies in Europe couldn’t beat their way out of a wet paper bag, even if it already had a tear in it. Most of these services have degenerated into unionized 8 to 5 Monday through Friday social experiments much like the liberals are trying to remake our military
From the CNN story, which contains cell video of the suspect on the floor of the train car (with blood):
The suspect had a box cutter or some other bladed weapon, authorities said.
“My friend Alek (Skarlatos) yells, ‘Get him,’ so my friend Spencer (Stone) immediately gets up to charge the guy, followed by Alek, then myself,” Anthony Sadler said in an interview with CNN.
“The three of us beat up the guy,” Anthony said. “In the process Spencer gets slashed multiple times by the box cutter, and Alek takes the AK away.
“I begin to tie him up with help from Chris, another passenger. I notice a man had his throat cut at which Spencer begins to apply pressure to the neck wound before he bled out.”
Spencer was cut in the head and neck and almost had his thumb cut off, Alek’s brother, Peter Skarlatos told CNN. Alek had taken control of the rifle and hit the suspect in the head with the muzzle, the brother said.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/21/europe/france-train-shooting/
So, turns out it wasn’t the Marines. USAF and National Guard. I like the story even better. Our regular everyday soldiers, unarmed, can handle terrorists. We can save our Marines for the tough stuff.
If it was, indeed, profiling, then profiling works. Expect this to be buried.
A commenter on another blog said that when he was serving in Germany, German WW II vets were sure they’d had to fight US Marines. They hadn’t, from which he deduced “U.S. Marine” is the Yurp default for American bad ass. I guess that’s one of the benefits of the jarheads getting so much ink, but it did lead in this case–presuming he’s right–to some hilarity in reporting.
What we had, if current reports are correct, is a couple of USAF?National Guard guys. College kids, part-time soldiers with the required summer break in Afghanistan. They were Americans. That was sufficient.
Oldflyer,
Plus Army did plenty of the heavy lifting in the Pacific, too.
Steve57,
Not a lot but some (relatively speaking) – a few thousand – Marines served in the Atlantic (Europe, N Africa) theater, too.