A 22 year-old American soldier named Glendon Oakley is being hailed as a hero after he went above and beyond to save the lives of many children during the recent mass shooting in El Paso, Texas.

Glendon was out shopping for clothes last weekend when a little boy ran into the store saying that there was a gunman at the nearby Walmart. Nobody paid any attention, but when Glendon walked into the next store, he realized the boy was telling the truth.

“I just heard two gunshots and a whole bunch of people started running around and screaming,” he recalled.

As he ran for the mall’s exit, Glendon came upon a dozen children in the mall’s play area, and he immediately took action.

“I didn’t even think. I just grabbed as many kids as I could and ran five stores down to the exit,” he said. “We got there and ran into a whole batch of police pointing their guns at us. I wasn’t focused on myself, and I wasn’t focused on my surroundings … I was just focused on those kids.”

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Though he served in Kuwait as an Army automated logistics specialist, Glendon was still scared for his life and was devastated to learn that twenty people were killed.

“I heard four kids died. I wish I could have gotten more kids out of there,” he said. “I wish those guys who ran would have stayed … I just think, what if that was my child? How would I want some other man to react?”

“I wish they had some sense of service,” he added after a pause.

“I understand it was heroic, and I’m looked at as a hero for it, but that wasn’t the reason for me …,” an emotional Glendon said. “I’m just focused on the kids I could not get and the families that were lost. It hurts me, like, they were part of me. I don’t even know the people that died or the kids that I took with me … I want to reach out to the families that were lost and the families that lost their children because the focus should not be on me.”

“The spotlight should not be on me right now,” he added. “I need the media to go out to the families and make sure they’re OK … I understand what I did was heroic, but I did that because that’s what I was trained to do and that’s what the military has taught me to do.”

God bless this American hero. Find out more about what Glendon Oakley did in the video below.

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