<p>December 4, 2001 -- The year 1997 was a critical turning point for high-school student John Walker. That's when he read "The Autobiography of Malcolm X," began wearing a white robe and turban, and changed his name.</p>
<p>The conversion of John Phillip Walker Lindh from California teenager to grimy Taliban fighter and U.S. prisoner of war can be traced to the year he spent cramming for his high-school diploma at an alternative independent school in the San Francisco Bay area.</p>