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STAFF SGT. SARA KELLER/U.S. AIR FORCE VIA AP
Air Force Airman 1st Class Spencer Stone, along with childhood friends Aleksander Skarlatos and Anthony Sadler, was recently honored by French President François Hollande with the French Legion of Honour for subduing an armed gunman when he entered their train carrying an assault rifle, a handgun and a box cutter. Stone is an ambulance service technician with the 65th Medical Operations Squadron stationed at Lajes Field, Azores.
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. >> The U.S. Air Force airman who was injured when he and two childhood friends tackled a heavily armed gunman on a Paris-bound train returned to his native California Thursday night.
Airman 1st Class Spencer Stone arrived at about 8:30 p.m. at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California, near Sacramento.
Stone stepped off the plane from Rammstein, Germany, to cheers from about 200 people who had gathered to greet him, many waving small American flags. He waved at the crowd and hugged family and friends on the tarmac before quickly walking into the terminal. He did not speak to reporters.
Stone wore camouflage fatigues and had a bandaged hand, but moved quickly and energetically through the crowd and showed no other signs of ill health.
Military officials planned to take him immediately to the base hospital for evaluations, Lt. Col. Robert Couse-Baker said.
Stone has been undergoing medical treatment in Germany since he, National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos and Sacramento college student Anthony Sadler, all childhood friends from the Sacramento area, subdued the gunman on a passenger train speeding through Belgium on Aug. 21.
Skarlatos and Sadler have already returned to the U.S.
Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson said earlier Thursday that with all three heroes back in Sacramento, the city will honor their bravery with a parade down the Capitol Mall on Sept. 11..
