When a gunman came into their crowded Paris-bound train car trying to cock his AK-47, three American friends realized "It was either do something or die," so they sprang into action, tackling him before he could get off a shot, one of the three said today. 
 
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 Airman 1st Class Spencer Stone, National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos and their civilian friend Anthony Sadler were on the Amsterdam-to-Paris train Friday when a gunman, who had already fired a shot that wounded another passenger. 
 
 "At that time he was cocking the AK-47," Sadler said today from the U.S. Embassy in Paris, "So it was either do something or die." 
 
 The three spoke together for the first time together today, detailing what happened Friday when a man identified by authorities as the gunman, identified by French authorities as Ayoub El Khazzani, began his attack on board the high-speed train. 
 
 THOMAS SAMSON/AFP/Getty Images 
 
 "In times of crisis ... do something," Sadler, 23, a senior at Sacramento State University in California, said. "Hiding or sitting back is not going to accomplish anything." 
 
 Skarlatos, 22, of Roseburg, Oregon, said the first thing he heard was a gunshot. 
 
 Stone, 23, of Carmichael, California, said the sound woke him up from "a deep sleep," and when he turned and saw the gunman, his first thought was about "survival, to survive and for everyone on the train to make it." 
 
 All three friends credited each other with helping stop the gunman. 
 
 "The gunman would have been successful if my friend Spencer had not gotten up," Sadler added. 
 
 "I trust both my friends very much," Stone said. "If it wasn't for them I would have been dead." 
 
 Stone said he put the attacker in a chokehold, but the gunman kept pulling more weapons. The attacker started jabbing at Stone with a box cutter and all three friends began punching and hitting him to subdue him. 
 
 “He seemed like he was ready to fight to the end," Stone said. "So were we." 
 
 THOMAS SAMSON/AFP/Getty Images 
 
 Stone said he choked the attacker unconscious while Skarlatos hit him in the head. 
 
 Stone, who had a black eye and had his left arm in a sling after undergoing surgery to reattach his thumb that the attacker slashed with his box cutter, said that once the gunman was hogtied on the floor, he went to help another injured American, Mark Moogalian, and used his fingers to stop bleeding in the Moogalian's neck. 
 
 Moogalian was the first person to disarm the gunman, according to a statement today from Moogalian's family. 
 
 "When the gunman came out of the bathroom another person engaged him and was thrown to the side, Mark then jumped in and after a struggle was able to get the AK 47 away," the statement said. "Mark then turned around to get his wife out of harm’s way but did not realize the gunman still had a pistol. He shot Mark in the back, the bullet went through his lung and exited his collarbone. When Mark went down that’s when the gunman retrieved the AK 47. Mark was able to get to another car and that's when other rushed in.” 
 
 According to Sadler, the trio were initially sitting in a different carriage, but a bad wifi connection led them to get up and move to what became the scene of the attack. 
 
 "We often use the word hero, and in this case it is appropriate," U.S. Ambassador to France Jane Hartley said in her introduction of the trio. "They are truly heroes." 
 
 She said they "demonstrated the very best of America in their selfless actions." 
 
 The trio will be received by French President Francois Hollande at the Elysee Palace on Monday, officials said. 
 
 They will be awarded France’s highest honor, the Legion of Honor, by Hollande, a spokesman for the interior ministry confirmed to ABC News. 
 
 Stone said he doesn't know when he is going back to the United States, but said he will first go to Germany for medical care. 
 
 According to The Associated Press, France placed El Khazzani on a security watch list in February 2014. Spanish authorities had informed them El Khazzani, who was born in Morocco, had joined "the radical Islamist movement" and may have been a foreign fighter in Syria. 
 
 A lawyer for El Khazzani told a French television station he had told her he was homeless and intended to rob the train so he could eat, according to The Associated Press. Lawyer Sophie David described El Khazzani as very thin and possibly malnourished. 
 
 "He thought of a hold-up to be able to feed himself, to have money," David said to BFM-TV, then "shoot out a window and jump out to escape." 
 
 "He is dumbfounded that his action is being characterized as terrorism," David added. 
 
 The Associated Press contributed to this report. ||||| Three Americans -- two of them service members -- helped foil a potentially deadly attack when they subdued a man armed with an assault rifle and other weapons on board a high-speed train bound for Paris, officials said. 
 
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 Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos, and Anthony Sadler were on a train from Amsterdam to Paris on Friday when a man armed with an automatic rifle and a box cutter started attacking passengers. Sadler was visiting Stone, 23, an Air Force airman first class stationed in Portugal, and Skarlatos, 23, an Army National Guard specialist stationed in Afghanistan. 
 
 "I came to see my friends on my first trip in Europe and we stopped a terrorist," Sadler told Eurovision. "It's kind of crazy." 
 
 Sadler said that during the ride they heard a gunshot and glass shattering in the train car behind them. They then saw an armed man entering their carriage and holding an automatic weapon as if he was ready to begin firing. 
 
 "Alek just yells, 'Spencer go!' and Spencer just gets up within five seconds of the guy being in the car and just rushes back there," Sadler said. "He gets up, I get up and Alek gets up and all three of us just rush back there." 
 
 Stone tackled the attacker to the ground, Sadler said. As Sadler, Skarlatos, and a fourth passenger, Chris Norman, jumped in to hold him down, the attacker pulled out a box cutter and slashed Stone, Sadler said. 
 
 Stone's finger was nearly severed, according to his family. 
 
 "I just wish he [Stone] didn’t have to get hurt, but they saved lives," Stone’s mother, Joyce Eskel, told ABC affiliate KXTV-TV in Sacramento, California. 
 
 Stone was released from a hospital in Lille, France, on Saturday. 
 
 Reuters 
 
 "If anybody is a hero, it is pretty much Spencer," Sadler said. "He was bleeding himself, could barely see, blood running down his own face." 
 
 Obama called Stone, Skarlatos and Sadler on Saturday to commend them for their courage and heroic actions, said Principal Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz. Obama also wished Stone a "full and speedy recovery, and expressed how proud all Americans are of their extraordinary bravery," said Schultz. 
 
 Norman said Saturday he was acting purely on survival instincts when he jumped in to help hold the attacker down. 
 
 "My thought was I'm probably going to die anyway, so let's go," he said. "I'd rather die being active ... than simply sit in the corner and be shot." 
 
 Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty Images 
 
 The attacker was taken into custody as the train was stopped in Arras, France, about two hours northeast of Paris. He was being interviewed by French counter-terrorism officials Saturday, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said. 
 
 Cazeneuve said did not release the suspect's name, but said that if he is the man he says he is, then he is a 26-year-old Moroccan who Spanish authorities say is a member of the radical Islamist movement. 
 
 A spokesman for Belgium's federal prosecutor said the man arrested was identified as Ayoub El Khazani. Belgian authorities were investigating where he lived and where he got the weapons, the spokesman said. 
 
 According to Cazeneuve, the suspect was armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, a 9mm automatic pistol and a box cutter. 
 
 A French actor, Jean-Hugues Anglade, suffered non-life threatening injuries in the attack, said Cazeneuve, who also thanked the Americans for their courage and cool nerves. 
 
 REUTERS 
 
 ABC News' Mustafa Hameed and Rachel Katz contributed reporting.
– "It was either do something or die," says US Airman Spencer Stone in his first public comments on stopping a gunman from rampaging through a French train. He describes waking from "a deep sleep" to see the gunman holding an AK-47, reports ABC News, his first thought going to "survival, to survive and for everyone on the train to make it." The gunman "seemed like he was ready to fight to the end," Stone said, per the AP. "So were we." Stone, along with longtime friends Anthony Sadler and Alek Skarlatos, spoke about the attack today from the US Embassy in Paris; Stone was released from the hospital yesterday after surgery to reattach his thumb, which was severed with a boxcutter. "In the beginning it was mostly gut instinct, survival," added Skarlatos, a National Guardsman. "Our training kicked in after the struggle." The threesome credit each other: "The gunman would have been successful if my friend Spencer had not gotten up," says Sadler, while Stone says simply, "I trust both my friends very much. If it wasn't for them I would be dead." US Ambassador Jane Hartley pointed to Americans' penchant for throwing around the word hero" but said, "in this case I know that word has never been more appropriate. They are truly heroes. 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." The guys are getting some serious praise, and next meet with a grateful Francois Hollande.