Word: lindh
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Walker's childhood neighbors said the things neighbors always say in these situations. "They were an average American family," and John "was a sweet, quiet boy." It happens to be true. John Walker Lindh was a middle child named after John Lennon and Chief Justice John Marshall. He spent his first 10 years in Silver Spring, Md., in the happy, unremarkable manner that most parents wish for their children. "We were loud, normal kids," says Andrew Cleverdon, a boyhood friend of Walker's. "We played football and basketball, rode our bikes." John's father, attorney Frank Lindh, took...
Apparently it was The Autobiography of Malcolm X that inspired Walker to convert to Islam. He talked with his parents about his plans. Frank Lindh, now a lawyer with Pacific Gas & Electric, was accepting. Marilyn Walker had reservations. "She was concerned," says Marilyn's friend Stephanie Hendricks. "You have a 16-year-old kid who gets involved in any kind of religion in a passionate way, and you're going to want to know more about it, right...
...Walker passed a proficiency exam and graduated early from Tamiscal High. He asked that the name on his diploma be changed to Sulayman Al-Lindh. He never picked up the certificate. Soon he told Nana that he had found an Arabic-language school in San'a, Yemen, on the Internet. "The language spoken in Yemen is closer to the holy language of the Koran and the sayings of the Prophet," explains Nana. Walker also felt it would be easier to practice Islam in a Muslim country. In December 1998 he left for the Middle East...
...John Walker had transformed himself from a quiet, smooth-cheeked American teenager to a devout, bearded Muslim studying in Yemen. That he could grow the requisite beard was something of a miracle. Were his parents really onboard with all this? With the new name? The move to Yemen? Frank Lindh says yes. "He was always intellectually coherent, and he had a wonderful sense of humor," Lindh told reporters. "And none of that changed when he converted to Islam. I never had any major misgivings...
When the U.S.S. Cole was bombed in October 2000, Walker was back in Yemen. In an e-mail exchange with his son, Frank Lindh said he felt terrible for the victims and their families. John's reply suggested that the attack may have been justified because the Cole was docked in an Islamic country. Lindh dismissed the exchange as a "father/son debate, much like my dad and I used to have over [the] Vietnam war." A month after the Cole bombing, Walker left Yemen for Bannu, a village in Pakistan's northwest, to attend an Islamic school, or madrasah. Pakistan...