American who helped stop France terror attack returns to California

 

SACRAMENTO, Calif. --

One of the three Americans who helped stop a terror attack on a high-speed train traveling from Amsterdam to Paris returned home to California on Tuesday.

A relaxed Anthony Sadler, 23, walked off a commercial plane at Sacramento International Airport accompanied by his parents.

The Sacramento State University student was dressed in black shorts and a gray sweatshirt and was carrying a black backpack as the family walked into the tarmac with the rest of the passengers. Instead of using a jetway to the terminal like other travelers, the family was led to an area where several sheriff's vehicles waited.

TV trucks and a cluster of reporters waited outside Sadler's parents' home in the Sacramento suburb of Rancho Cordova Tuesday night but the family hadn't arrived to the house on a tree-lined street.

VIDEO: Three Sacramento men talk about role in stopping terror attack

The family landed in Sacramento after taking a private jet to Portland, Oregon. Columbia Sportswear CEO Timothy Boyle had made the jet available to fly the Americans' mothers to France.

Sadler and two Sacramento-area friends, U.S. Air Force Airman Spencer Stone, 23, and Oregon National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos, 22, helped subdue Ayoub El-Khazzani, a man with ties to radical Islam who was carrying a handgun and an assault weapon on the train Friday.

Stone was undergoing treatment at a military hospital in Germany for injuries suffered in the attack. Skarlatos remained with Stone in Germany.

Senior U.S. Army leaders said Skarlatos will get the Soldiers Medal - the Army's highest award for acts of heroism not involving actual conflict with the enemy.

The city of Sacramento is planning a parade for all three men, who grew up in the area.