8 Seconds of Courage

A story of valor and the making of a hero—Florent Groberg, who grew up in France, emigrated to the US, and was the first immigrant in forty years to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor after he saved many lives by tackling a suicide bomber in Afghanistan.Florent "Flo" Groberg was born in 1983, in the suburbs of Paris. When he was in middle school, his family moved to the US, and Flo became a naturalized citizen in 2001. After attending the University of Maryland, he joined the Army in 2008 and deployed to Afghanistan in 2009. He deployed a second time in 2012. In August of that year, Flo was guarding a high-level US-Afghan delegation and noticed someone suspicious: a local man stumbling toward his patrol. Flo reacted quickly and ran to tackle the man—who was wearing a suicide vest—before he could reach the patrol. Four people died in the subsequent explosion, but many others were spared. Flo himself was badly wounded and spent the next three years...