Two Unlikely Colleagues Sound A Wakeup Call?

On June 1, 2009, outside a military recruiting office in Little Rock, Arkansas, 23-year-old Army Pvt. William “Andy” Long was shot and killed, and 18-year-old Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula was wounded by self-proclaimed jihadist Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, formerly known as Carlos Bledsoe. In an AP interview, Muhammad claimed that his act was not murder because his act was justified, and even that it displayed “common sense.” He related that “U.S. soldiers kill innocent Muslim men and women” and that Muslims need to “strike back.”

Andy’s father, Daris Long and the father of the shooter, Melvin Bledsoe, met in the aftermath of this event under the most grievous of conditions. Even so, they have since formed a friendship and mutual mission to find closure in their shared tragedy by spreading awareness among Americans of the realities of their ordeal, and by demanding that their government identify this tragedy as what it is: a domestic act of Islamic terror.