On Memorial Day, you might spare a thought for Americans like Mike Spann "With so much going on in your life over the Memorial Day weekend — picnics, parades, soccer and sitting out late with your family and friends, telling stories and laughing — the last thing you need is another thing to do.
"And I’m not telling you to do this, but if you have a quiet moment, alone, you might want to think of someone: Johnny Micheal Spann.
"He was called Mike. He was a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps. And later, he joined CIA. "He was a father, a husband. He’s buried at Arlington National Cemetery." . . .
. . . "Spann is said to have been the first American killed in the war in Afghanistan. On Nov. 25, 2001, at the ancient fortress turned into a military prison Qala-I-Jangi during an uprising.
"He’d just interrogated a piece of human garbage, the so-called “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh. Spann’s family had always thought that Lindh should have warned his fellow American that the uprising was coming, and that Lindh bore responsibility.
"Lindh wasn’t charged with murder. He spent 17 years in prison and was released a few days ago. It was a big deal when he was captured — his face was dirty, his eyes were wild, his long hair was matted and filthy. He’d grown up wealthy, from Marin County, Calif., and converted to Islam in his teens." . . .
"In federal prison, he’d write letters to reporters, expressing his admiration for Islamic State and al-Qaida and other terrorist groups that were quick to murder, including decapitations of Americans on video and sending that video out so the world could see." . . .
