Two Americans’ Unlikely Crossroads

It’s Nov. 25, 2001, and a tense scene caught on videotape unfolds on a desolate strip of sand in the Afghan desert. Two young men are perched face to face on a sprawl of blankets, a pair of Americans brought together halfway across the world to play out an improbable and ultimately tragic string of events.

In a few moments, the interrogator would be dead, and the other man, his arms still bound tightly behind him, would escape amid a firestorm of bullets into the dank bowels of a prison encampment.

The brief meeting of CIA agent Johnny “Mike” Spann and John Walker Lindh is the centerpiece of an A&E; special tonight at 9 that examines the starkly different paths that nevertheless led the men to the same desert storm.

“Investigative Reports: Two Young Americans: The Patriot and the Taliban” paints an absorbing picture of individuals whose only apparent shared trait was a steely sense of commitment.

Occasionally, the paint is slapped on thicker than it needs to be. Spann’s story of being raised in a small Alabama town is accompanied by warm, folksy music and depicted by shots of leafy streets and Little League baseball. Lindh’s Bay Area segment runs without music, other than the blare of a commuter train’s horn.

The personality shadings are interesting. Spann’s junior high teacher cheerfully describes the boy punching out a classmate. Lindh’s online records reveal him posing as a black man in a chat room while pontificating on the nature of racism.

But the most gripping moments are spent with Spann’s parents and widow, whose pain and anger is assuaged only by the belief that they lost a loved one for a noble cause.