Back in June 2012, an armed robber entered a Bank of America in Sarasota, FL. and little did he know that one of the customers inside the bank was more than equipped to handle the situation.

The CCTV footage showed the 34-year-old man demanding cash from each of the four bank tellers before pointing his handgun (which turned out to be a fake plastic gun) at a father and his two young sons.

But the robber bad luck is that he didn’t know that the man shielding his children was Staff Sgt. Eddie Peoples, who happened to be home on leave because his father-in-law was ill.

Sgt. Peoples snapped into action-hero mode when the robber threatened his boys, Ikaika and Kioni.

“I’ve been through five deployments,” he told FOX News in Tampa Bay. “I’ve fought the Muqtada militia, everybody you can think of, so weapons getting pointed at me, it doesn’t really bother me anymore.”

What the off-duty sergeant did next was “a piece of cake” compared to being in a Middle East war zone. Don’t miss this!

Watch the video below to see what happened during this thwarted robbery