In photos and video of the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings, two soliders in combat uniforms can be seen pulling the gate that trapped victims.
Those soliders were not just spectators of the marathon--they had started it at 5 a.m., carrying 40-pund packs as part of Tough Ruck 2013, an event to honor fallen comrades in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
After completing the marathon, the soldiers met at the medical tent as part of a contingency plan, when the explosions happened, Mother Jones reports:
When the explosion went off, (Lieutenant Stephen) Fiola and his group immediately went into tactical mode. "I did a count and told the younger soldiers to stay put," Fiola says. "Myself and two other soldiers, my top two guys in my normal unit, crossed the street about 100 yards to the metal scaffoldings holding up the row of flags. We just absolutely annihilated the fence and pulled it back so we could see the victims underneath. The doctors and nurses from the medical tent were on the scene in under a minute. We were pulling burning debris off of people so that the medical personnel could get to them and begin triage."
Once the victims were transported away for further medical care, Fiola and the others stood guard around the blast area. "We switched to keeping the scene safe, quarantining the area and preventing people from entering. There was a guy behind me covered, just covered, in his own blood, and I started to smell some smoke. I turn around to look and he's actually on fire, from a piece of whatever caused the explosion. I saw the smoke coming from his pocket so I reached in and pulled it out. It was his handkerchief, on fire." [...]
"We had some sort of an influence, at least in helping the nurses get to the wounded and helping calm people down," he says. "It's one of those things that makes you go home and kiss everyone in your family."