John Walker Lindh - Youth, Conversion and Travels

Youth, Conversion and Travels

Lindh was born in Washington, D.C. to Marilyn Walker and Frank Lindh. He was baptized a Catholic, and grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland. When he was 10 years old, his family moved to San Anselmo, California. Lindh suffered from an intestinal disorder as a child. At age 14, his health improved and he enrolled at Redwood High School as a freshman. He then transferred to Tamiscal High School in the Tamalpais Union High School District, an alternative school offering self-directed, individualized study programs. While there, he studied world culture, including Islam and the Middle East. Lindh subsequently left the school and eventually earned an equivalent of a high school diploma by passing the California High School Proficiency Exam at age 16.

As an adolescent, Lindh participated in IRC chat rooms with the IRC nickname Mujahid. He became a devoted fan of hip-hop music, and engaged in extensive discussions on Usenet newsgroups, sometimes pretending to be an African-American rapper who would criticize others for "acting black". The Spike Lee film Malcolm X impressed him deeply and sparked his interest in Islam.

Although his parents did not officially divorce until 1999, their marriage was in serious trouble throughout Walker's adolescence; his father would often leave their Marin residence for extended periods to live in San Francisco with a male lover. Frank Lindh stated that they had been effectively separated since 1997.

In 1997, Lindh officially converted to Islam and began regularly attending mosques in Mill Valley, and later, in nearby San Francisco. In 1998 Lindh traveled to Yemen, and stayed for about 10 months to learn Arabic so that he could read the Qur'an in its original language. He returned to the United States in 1999, living with his family for about eight months before returning to Yemen in February 2000, from which he left for Pakistan to study at a madrassa. While abroad, Lindh sent numerous emails to his family. In one, his father told him about the USS Cole bombing, to which Lindh replied that since the American destroyer was in the Yemen harbor, it was an act of war against Islam and therefore justified. "This raised my concerns", his father told Newsweek, "but my days of molding him were over."

Aged 20, he decided to travel to Afghanistan to fight for the Afghan Taliban government forces against Northern Alliance fighters. His parents state that he was moved by stories of atrocities allegedly perpetrated by the Afghan Northern Alliance army against civilians. He traveled to Afghanistan in May 2001, contrary to reports after his arrest that implied or stated that he traveled to Afghanistan to kill Americans after 9/11. American soldiers were not deployed in Afghanistan at the time he joined the Taliban government forces; however, he chose to stay and fight after it was known American forces were in country and backing the Northern Alliance.

Tony West, his lawyer, explained it as follows:

"One of the first things he told Army interrogators when they questioned him on December 3 of last year was that after 9/11 happened, he wanted to leave the front lines but couldn't for fear of his life. John never wanted to be in a position where he was opposing the United States (and never thought he would be), and in fact he never opposed any American military."

Despite this assertion, Lindh had multiple opportunities to announce his American citizenship. He instead said he was Irish. While being interviewed by John Spann he still did not reveal that he is a United States citizen. Though much has been made of the fact that Lindh did meet Osama bin Laden, his association with bin Laden was only a passing encounter and not an affiliation.