Mystery Man French-American hero in Train Attack - Shot in neck stopping gunman!

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Richmond Times-Dispatch

August 25, 2015

By Bill McKelway Richmond Times-Dispatch The Daily Progress

Family members of a former Midlothian man hailed as a hero for being the first passenger to grab an assault rifle from a gunman aboard the high-speed train headed from Amsterdam to Paris say they are proud of Mark Moogalian and anxious to learn more about his condition after being shot while wresting the weapon Friday from Ayoub El-Khazzani.

The Telegraph of London reported that Moogalian, 51, who teaches English at the Sorbonne, tackled El-Khazzani during Friday’s train attack and grabbed his weapon before being shot through the neck. The attacker was then subdued by three vacationing Americans who have been cited for their heroism in the episode, as well as a Briton.

Moogalian, a graduate of Midlothian High School, is a member of a family of Armenian descent with deep roots in Virginia. Relatives operated a grocery for many years in the Hopewell area.

“We couldn’t be more proud,” said an uncle, Harry Moogalian. He said in an interview Monday morning that the family is still trying to sort out the sequence of events that left the author and musician shot and hospitalized. Moogalian said the family here is still awaiting word about his nephew's condition.

Moogalian's encounter with the gunman appears to be the first confrontation in the episode that was quelled by the three Americans and Briton who Monday were given France's highest award, the Legion d'Honneur, by President Francois Hollande.

Hollande acknowledged that Moogalian also intervened. Moogalian's wife told Europe-1 radio Monday that he, too, "is among the heroes in this story," the AP reported.

Isabella Risacher-Moogalian described hiding behind train seats from the attacker and then seeing her husband wounded. "He looked at me and said 'I'm hit, I'm hit.' He thought it was over and he was going to die," the AP quoted her as saying.

According to The Telegraph, Moogalian was hospitalized but doing well despite the ordeal.

The British newspaper quoted Moogalian’s sister, Julia, as saying the gunman was able to pull another weapon and shoot her brother, who suffered nerve damage as the bullet passed through his body.

According to The Telegraph, Moogalian made sure his wife was behind a seat before confronting the gunman and taking his weapon.

Moogalian's sister said "there's a video of him saying, 'help me' - he thought he was losing so much blood he would die." The newspaper reported on its website that Moogalian was doing well in the hospital despite the ordeal.

"We're extremely proud of him," the sister was quoted as saying.

Moogalian's uncle described his nephew as a a free spirit who recently authored a vaguely autobiographical novel called Mr. Farride about a man living on a houseboat on the Seine River in Paris, is married and teaches English at the Sorbonne.

“He has taken a much different path than much of the family and what he has accomplished has been very much on his own,” Harry Moogalian said.

An artist, sculptor and musician, Moogalian formed a duo called Secret Season with his wife, whom he married in 2003.

Moogalian’s father, now retired, was a senior scientist with Liggett & Myers Tobacco Co.

The family moved to Richmond from Durham , N.C. and Moogalian has written that rivers, the Eno in North Carolina, the James in Richmond and the Seine in Paris have always been central to his life.

A short biography states that after travelling to France he busked from London to Venice, taking in the culture and writing songs. He paints, sculpts, writes and plays music for a living. “The trip to Europe was a turning point in his life,” according to a short biography accompanying his novel.

Moogalian was the founder of two musical groups in Richmond, Look Like Bamboo and Javaman. And his range of abilities as a musician stretches from the guitar to the hand saw. Both musical groups were widely praised by area critics for their musical ability.

Friends and family praised Moogalian on Facebook late Sunday.

“Please keep my cousin in your prayers. What courage,” Sheila Konis posted.

“Incredible act of bravery from former classmate Mark Moogalian Midlothian High School,” posted Caycee Poust Buscaglia. “Prayers on speedy recovery!”

In Paris this morning, the three Americans and Briton were honored by Hollande. He said that while two of the Americans who tackled the gunman were soldiers, "on Friday you were simply passengers. You behaved as soldiers but also as responsible men," according to an account by The Associated Press.

Hollande then pinned the medals on U.S. Airman Spencer Stone, National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos, and their longtime friend Anthony Sadler. British businessman Chris Norman was also honored.

A French passenger was the first to try to stop the attacker and was also honored Monday, but he did not want his identity publicly known, Hollande said, who added "I understand" the decision.

NBC News

August 25, 2015

French Train Attack: Hero American Teacher Mark Moogalian 'Would Give Anything for Anybody'

by M. Alex Johnson, Katie Wall and F. Brinley Bruton

Relatives of the American teacher who was shot while trying to disarm a gunman aboard a high-speed French train say they're not the least bit surprised by his selfless act.

French President François Hollande noted the courage of Mark Moogalian, 51, originally from Midlothian, Virginia, who remained in a Lille hospital Tuesday.

Dr. Patrick Goldstein, director of the hospital emergency room, told reporters on Monday that Moogalian was being treated for a neck wound, three broken ribs and other unspecified injuries.

"You see stuff on the news and you never think it would be our brother," Julia Allen, Moogalian's sister, told NBC News on Monday.

But she said her brother's attempt to wrestle down the Kalashnikov-armed gunman during Friday's attack on the Amsterdam-to-Paris train was wholly in character.

"Mark would give anything for anybody," Allen said. "He's just that kind of person."

Moogalian, who's lived in France for more than 20 years, had remained unknown until Sunday, when he was identified by British newspapers. He is a published author, artist and musician who teaches English- and French-language courses for business clients in France, according to the websites for his artistic pursuits and for The American Studio, his language business.

"My husband told me that he had seen someone strange because he had entered the toilets with his suitcase and it lasted a long time," Moogalian's wife, Isabella Risacher-Moogalian, told Europe1 Radio on Monday. "A little while later, the guy came out, and that's when he saw that the guy was carrying a gun."

Moogalian told his wife to "go" and then "rushed toward the gunman to remove ... the Kalashnikov," Risacher-Moogalian said.

"I look at my husband through the seats at an angle, and he looked straight at me and said, 'I'm hit!' ... There was blood everywhere," she said. "I ran toward him, and I could see that he a wound on his back. I then saw another wound by his neck."

Allen told NBC News that it still wasn't clear when Moogalian would be able to leave the French hospital, which has added to the family's stress.

"It's been extremely emotional because he's an ocean away, and we cannot be there to give him our comfort and our love and our hugs" Allen said.

"The last time we saw our brother was just a few short weeks back," she said. "We did lose our mother, and we know she would be extremely proud of Mark."

An uncle, Harry Moogalian, told The Richmond, Virginia Times-Dispatch on Monday that his nephew was a graduate of Midlothian High School, near Richmond, where the family has deep roots.

"He has taken a much different path than much of the family, and what he has accomplished has been very much on his own," Harry Moogalian said.

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What ever happened to the Great American Hero?

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Babe Ruth greeting beloved kids

Players for the Love of the Game not the Money!

For years, I watched in amazement as one after another of the last of the American heroes died and there was no one left to replace them.  For a long time I wondered why our heroes were disappearing, and where were we turning for inspiration, example, hope, and dreams.

I cannot even imagine growing up in a world today when your heroes might be Avatars or Anime, instead of Gary Cooper or Mickey Mantle.

Actually a few of you may wonder why Cooper is one of my top heroes.

When I was a kid baseball was still America's sport.  By the 1950's America had survived two world wars and the greatest depression in history, all in less than 40 years.  It was a time for the Golden Years when dreams came true and the American Dream could be realized.

By the way, whoever suggested the American dream was owning your own home in the suburbs with a brand new car in the driveway was nuts.

I was a Midwestern Hayseed and our dreams were of being really good at something so others might look up to you.  No one I knew was motivated by the desire for money and material possessions.  We wanted to excel at something and earn the respect from others for what we might achieve.

For the most part, setting new standards, breaking barriers, working harder, and sacrificing more served as an inspiration to others.  Many of our (the guys) heroes were baseball players and back then they played for the love of the game, not the love of the money, a monumental difference from today.

Ruth & Gehrig with kids

Then they used their fame to help inspire others, mostly kids, to do the same.

Thus began the start of my keen interest in actor Gary Cooper.  In the 1950's the two most popular baseball movies were the stories of the two most popular Yankees of all time and the two players whose careers epitomized the best and worst of baseball, Gehrig and Ruth.

The Yankees Babe Ruth, the Bronx Bomber, and Lou Gehrig, the Ironman of baseball, both had helped build the New York Yankees into the most popular and powerful franchise in sports history, including today.

Gehrig's story was first on film in 1942 called The Pride of the Yankees, released just a year after his unexpected death before his 38th birthday.  In America it was too early, too young, and too wrong for a genuine American hero to die that way.

Actor Gary Cooper played the role and had the benefit of the real Yankees and Babe Ruth who played with Lou Gehrig, to help him with the role. More than that, his Oscar winning talent was up to the task and his personal humility captured the essence of Lou Gehrig,  The film was magical and no one left the theater with a dry eye.

In 1948 William Bendix played the Babe in the movie The Babe Ruth Story about the life of the other twin pillar of Yankee history.  The beloved hero of all kids in America, raised in an orphanage in Baltimore, had a hard life struggling with the dark side but never wavered in his efforts to inspire kids.

Bendix, a Manhattan native, had once been bat boy for the New York Yankees and was in the dugout with the Babe as he hit over 100 home runs in Yankee stadium.  The Cooper and Bendix performances were exceptional and the movies remain among the top movies of all time to this day.

Maria Cooper Janis - Gary Cooper's daughter

My second experience with Gary Cooper came over 30 years later when I met a quite gifted woman in New York City trying to generate interest in quality films and documentaries.  At the time I had been working on National Geographic Television projects and was introduced to Maria Cooper Janis, the wife of world famous Classical Pianist Byron Janis.

Maria was Gary Cooper's only child and in the few conversations we were able to have about her father, one of my heroes who also played one if my heroes, I learned a lot more about her father.  Of course I remembered him for winning Oscars in Sergeant York and High Noon and his role as Lou Gehrig.

Father & daughter

But Maria's stories of growing up surrounded by Hollywood legends and listening to her dad's friends like Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Dinah Shore, and Rosemary Clooney sing in her father's home on his grand piano must have been, well, amazing.

Maria and I shared a common interest in American Indians as did her father, and his reverence for the Indians extended to their values and practices.  At the time I was working with Indian nations from throughout North and South America and the world but especially with the Hopi of Arizona.

Gary Cooper was a hero, and many of the film roles he played captured the persona of heroes Americans loved.  His best friends included hero actor James Stewart and writer Ernest Hemingway, and among his co-stars were other heroines like Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, and Marlene Dietrich.

The question is, where have the heroes all gone?

The song Where Have All the Flowers Gone was written by Pete Seeger and Joe Hickerson and performed by Marlene Dietrich, a friend and co-star of Cooper.

Marlene Dietrich performed this song in English, French and German. The song was first performed in French (as "Qui peut dire où vont les fleurs?") by Marlene in 1962 at a UNICEF concert. She also recorded the song in English and in German, the latter titled "Sag' mir, wo die Blumen sind", with lyrics translated by Max Colpet.  She performed the German version on a tour of Israel, where she was warmly received; she was the first person to break the taboo of using German publicly in Israel since WWII.

So you see, heroes can influence heroes, like Ruth, Gehrig and Cooper, but where have they all gone? Perhaps in time we can recapture those values and characteristics out of our past and rekindle them in our future or America may never again have genuine heroes.

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American Pride is Back in Chile No Thanks to Obama and Washington Politicians

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At 8:30 this morning history was made when a rescue shaft reached 33 trapped miners in Chile who have been entombed over one half mile underground nearly two months. No miners have ever survived for two months underground and it was 33 days ago the rescue drills began a race to reach the 33 men. Ironic isn't it that the drilling to save 33 men took 33 days, that same number of years Jesus walked the earth.

Of course the American media with the exception of CNN completely missed the rescue and Obama and the American politicians were too busy tearing each other apart to recognize the importance of this event to America and America's place in the world.

You see the miners would have remained trapped in their tomb until Christmas if it had not been for the effort of a small American drilling company, Center Rock Inc., from a small town in Pennsylvania. When owner and President Brandon Fisher first heard it would take until Christmas to save the trapped miners he knew he had the equipment and technology to save them much faster and he contacted the Chile government.

Brandon began coordinating an international effort to get his equipment to the site and in use. With the help UPS who shipped it for free and his international contacts the equipment arrived and saved 2 1/2 months of the drilling time needed to reach the men. As they are pulled to freedom this weekend it will be the efforts of Brandon Fisher and his team working with the Chile government that made this possible.

There was no involvement by our haplessly incompetent government and our politicians were too busy trashing each other to take notice but in the end, it was the pride, skill, innovation and organization of Americans that helped save the miners in South America.

The government of Chile, by stepping in and taking charge of the disaster immediately rather than sitting back like the Obama administration did in the BP disaster, and by reaching out to the best people in the world for help unlike our BP experience, in which our government did not, that the potential of America was recognized and achieved.

Chile did a masterful job, Brandon Fisher and his Center Rock company team showed the world what the politicians could not, and the people of Chile now have a miracle. Nothing could highlight the power and importance of small business and innovationi in America more than this nor show it's value to the outside world. By the way, NASA specialists also provided valuable help to the rescue effort and Obama has gutted the NASA budget.
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Chile Mining Disaster Coming to an End - American Heroes Involved

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It was August 5 when 33 miners were trapped over one half a mile underground and were told it would take until Christmas, nearly five months, to drill new shafts and get them out. That news upset the owner of a small drilling operation in Pennsylvania who knew his company and crew could do much better.

In time they went to Chile to help and now it seems the ingenuity of the American miners could get the trapped miners out nearly two and one half months ahead of time thanks to the Americans and their equipment.

The latest news is the drilling will be complete this weekend and the miners could be saved by next Tuesday. Here is the information you should know about Brandon Fisher and his team, the heroes of the rescue.

Center Rock Drilling Bit Nears Chilean Miners Trapped Underground
October 8

San Jose mine in Copiapo, Chile -- Progress has been rapid on the drilling to rescue the Chilean miners thanks to a huge, 24 hour a day effort and employment of Center Rock's drill bit that is drilling its way through 2,070 feet of rock to finally reach the miners.

Brandon Fisher, CEO of Center Rock, Inc. is personally on-site assisting in the drilling of a rescue shaft to rescue the 33 trapped Chilean gold and copper miners. The planned rescue itself will be by using a steel capsule designed by the Chilean navy lowered into the hole to bring the miners to the surface one-by-one.

This current drilling employs a T-130 rig standing 45 meters tall with a Center Rock percussion-technology drill that can bore through as much as 40 meters of rock per day, depending on conditions. Center Rock has drilled holes as wide as 10 feet in diameter; this drill is carving a shaft 28" in diameter - wide enough to lift a man through using the capsule.

Brandon Fisher, whose American company built the drills, said that the pneumatic-based drilling system that will dig the final hole will have four hammers instead of just one - like the drill that Center Rock used to initially reach the miners with a 12" pilot hole.

Center Rock's drilling expertise was called upon by industry experts and Chile to drill this rescue bore hole for the 33 miners who were trapped during a cave-in on August 5th. The first small bore hole that reached the miners 17 days after the mine collapse brought news to the world they were alive 2,070 feet below the surface. Rescuers have been sending food, medicine and letters through a small pipe to the miners, as well as video cameras so the miners can communicate with their families.

Cutting large diameter holes in rock can be a challenge - the low profile (L.P.) drill series from Center Rock is currently used by some of the nation's largest building, roadway, and mining contractors to quickly drill holes to the exact size required by their specifications. The advanced engineering of the drills provides a cost effec¬tive solution for drilling and excavation requirements up to 120" in diameter.

About Brandon W. Fisher:

Brandon Fisher founded Center Rock, Inc. in 1998 as a small drilling company that has grown to become a leading manufacturer, supplier and service provider of drilling products that now employs approximately 70 people and continues to expand. Fisher's innovative and adaptive leadership coupled with Center Rock's quick responsiveness, unique products and 24-hour customer service are the hallmark of Fisher's entrepreneurial commitment and a key ingredient to his company's ability to compete in the drilling market, world-wide.

About Center Rock, Inc.:

Headquartered in Berlin, PA (with a Construction Product Sales office in Germantown, WI, and an engineering team in Roanoke, VA), Center Rock, Inc. manufactures and distributes a complete line of air drilling tools and products, including L.P. Drills and Hole Openers, that together meet drilling needs ranging from 5" to 120". The company's staff provides more than 75 years of combined oil field and construction site experience, excelling in hard-rock / unconventional environments.

Center Rock drills are frequently used to cut foundation holes for highway overpasses, bridge supports, building foundations and large utility poles among many other infrastructure projects as well as for mining, oil and gas and geothermal drilling.
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