John Walker Lindh

Remorse and signs of regret

Shortly before Walker Lindh left for Afghanistan, he sent his parents an e-mail message saying he was heading to a cooler climate. Frank Lindh said he did not know that his son was in Afghanistan until he saw him on CNN.

"I had no indication or reason to be concerned that he would put himself in danger like this by going to Afghanistan," Frank Lindh told CNN's "Larry King Live."

Bill Jones, a family friend in San Rafael, California, described Walker Lindh as "very sweet, unassuming, very spiritual young man -- rather frail, not an all-American football player or anything like that, certainly not a fighter."

Walker Lindh's parents "were very, very upset and very confused because what they saw on CNN was frightening," Jones said. "They hadn't seen or heard from him in seven months, and they were desperate. ... They tried to get a hold of him. They couldn't, and so to see him lying on the hospital floor with his blackened face and his eyes rolling into his skull really frightened them."

Walker Lindh had ended up in Mazar-e Sharif after being deployed to the Taliban front lines, where he was on September 11. His military questioners wrote that Walker Lindh "showed remorse and signs of regret" when asked about the terrorist attacks. Walker Lindh said one of his instructors had said the attacks were the first in three waves of attacks against U.S. interests.

When the U.S. bombardment began, Walker Lindh told CNN that he fled 100 miles on foot to Konduz, where he was one of more than 3,000 Taliban soldiers taken prisoner in the garrison. He was disarmed and boarded a truck to Mazar-e Sharif.