An off-duty Army serviceman is being celebrated as a hero after he saved the lives of several children during Saturday’s deadly mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, but the soldier says he doesn't want the world to focus on him.
"What I did was exactly what I was supposed to do. I understand it was heroic and I'm looked at as a hero for it, but that wasn't the reason for me," U.S. Army soldier Glendon Oakley said Sunday, before breaking down in tears. "I'm just focused on the kids that I could not [save] and the families. It hurts me. I feel like they were a part of me. I don't even know the people that died or the kids that I took with me."
Oakley, a 22-year-old automated logistical specialist stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas, was shopping at the Cielo Vista Mall in El Paso on Saturday morning when a young child ran up to him, saying there was a shooter at the nearby Walmart. Oakley said he didn't take the boy's claims seriously at first, but knew it was real when he began to hear gunfire. He said he immediately went into combat mode and began to grab as many children as he could to get them out of harm's way.