Heroes don’t come along very often.

Three young Americans, though, have become France’s national heroes for an amazing act of courage they performed while thwarting a would-be terrorist attacker.

Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos and Spencer Stone? Take a bow, fellas. You’ve earned a huge helping of high praise.

Sadler was traveling with his pals, both members of the U.S. military, when they noticed a man with an assault rifle. They tackled him, fought with him, wrestled the gun away from him. The bad guy was heard yelling “Give me back my gun!”

Skarlatos, a member of the Oregon National Guard, had recently returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan.

The gunman was identified as a 26-year-old Moroccan man.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the group demonstrated “great bravery.”

“Without their cool-headed actions we could have been faced with a terrible incident,” he said.

Do you think?

The word “hero” gets tossed around way too generously. It surely describes the actions of three brave young men traveling through France.

Sadler said this: “I’m just a college student. I came to see my friends for my first trip to Europe and we stop a terrorist. It’s kind of crazy.”

It’s also kind of heroic.