FROM THE BOOK
Chapter 1: FINDING JOHN
The timeline of John Walker Lindh's journey from northern California teenager to the "American Taliban" is marked with dates in boldface. November 1992: John Walker Lindh sees the movie Malcolm X and begins to mull the possibility of converting to Islam. Spring 1997: John passes the California proficiency exam allowing him to test out of the public high school system. Fall 1997: John starts taking history and politics classes at a local community college. Winter 1997: John's conversion is complete. He declares himself a Muslim. Summer 1998: John goes to Yemen to learn Arabic so that he can commit the Koran to memory as Muslim teacher-scholars, his aspiration, must do. May 2001: John e-mails his parents and tells them he is going to travel to the mountains to escape Pakistan's searing summer heat. September 6, 2001: John goes to the front line of a battle between Taliban forces and the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. December 3, 2001: John's picture and his introduction as the "American Taliban" appear on the Internet. January 15, 2002: Attorney General John Ashcroft declares John a terrorist. October 4, 2002: John is formally sentenced to 20 years in prison.
It was just five short years, but each date marked a chronology of heartbreak for Frank and Marilyn Lindh. They watched the events unfold with disbelief from the moment they realized their son was in Afghanistan until his sentencing. "The whole experience was my own personal big bang," Marilyn later said. "My life came apart and my family was under siege. Everyone keeps trying to find out what was wrong with John. Nothing was wrong with John. Everyone tried to blame us. Nothing is wrong with our family. Instead this was the most striking example of demonizing someone who doesn't see things the same way as other people I have ever seen."
Frank Lindh had just emerged from an early evening showing of Billy Bob Thornton's The Man Who Wasn't There when he noticed a message flashing on his cell phone. Lindh was a soft-spoken man, with a handsome face and lanky frame. He had the look of a runner, and his even temper and problem-solving demeanor were almost those of an Atticus Finch.
The voice mail was from his ex-wife, Marilyn. "Call me right away, it is about John," it said. Marilyn Lindh was not a woman prone to hyperbole. Tall and thin with long flowing hair and bangs, she exuded a sense of quiet and balance. For that reason, the tightness in her voice rattled Frank. He hurried to his car and drove up the road to Marilyn's house.
Frank and Marilyn Lindh had managed to construct one of those rare friendly divorces. They made decisions about their children together without rancor. They attended school plays sitting side by side. They shared the inevitable ferrying around of children as they went to soccer games or drama practice with good-natured compromise. The younger Lindhs were as likely to be found at their father's house on any given evening as they were their mother's. And after the divorce, when the Lindh parents sent letters and small notes to their children, they signed them with the slightly dated honorifics of "Mama" and "Papa."
Why a modern American would join forces with the Taliban would be the question that millions of Americans would later ask, including President Bush. The question would haunt John Walker Lindh for the rest of his life. His path to the Taliban would be a circuitous one, and it would take all of three years to complete.
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