Arkansas Fathers forge friendship Man befriends dad of man who killed his soldier son

By Rob Moritz Southwest Times Record LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- Daris Long and Melvin Bledsoe don't have much in common. Long is a white, burly, bearded former Marine who spent much of his youth in Afghanistan. Bledsoe is a black businessman who owns a successful tour bus company in Memphis. They both have loving wives and raised children to work hard, respect their country and obey the law. Their lives became forever intertwined at 10:19 a.m. June 1, 2009. That is when Bledsoe's son, Carlos, a convert to Islam who changed his name to Abdulhakim Muhammad, shot and killed Long's son, Army Pvt. William "Andy" Long of Conway, outside a west Little Rock military recruiting center. Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula of Jacksonville was wounded in the shooting rampage. Muhammad pleaded guilty to capital murder and attempted capital murder in 2011 and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Since then, Daris Long and Melvin Bledsoe have developed a friendship that centers around family loyalty, support and their desire to set the record straight on their personal ordeals. The two are trying to get the U.S. government to acknowledge that the fatal shooting was a terrorist attack on U.S. soil and that the FBI knew that Muhammad was involved with a terrorist group but didn't do anything to stop it. They also want people to know that in many areas of the country, young Americans are being taught an extremist form of Islam that encourages violence and anti-American sentiments. Daris Long said recently he admires Melvin Bledsoe's loyalty to his son despite the circumstances. "That is his son, and I would expect, I would hope, that I would be as loyal to my son," Long said, adding that he and his wife "told our kids that if they got themselves in trouble that we would be there to help them, but wouldn't lie for them. We would support them. "That is basically (Melvin Bledsoe's) situation at this point," he said. Long said the relationship between he and Bledsoe is one of understanding. "We have talked several times, but it's not like one of those things where I call him up every week and say, 'How are you doing?'" Long said last week. "I know how he is doing. "He is a small businessman, a success story, a black guy in the South who started his business 20 years after the civil rights movement, but he is not going to be remembered for being this success story," Long said. "He is going to be remembered as being the father to Abdulhakim Muhammad, and that to me is just unbelievable." Long said people show him sympathy and understanding when he speaks about his son's death. Bledsoe doesn't appear to get the same amount of sympathy, he said. "That just tears me up, because he didn't ask for this, but this is what he got," Long said. Bledsoe said he and Long have a "cordial relationship" and that the two of them are "trying to do the same thing." "I think we have the same common goal," he said. "We want the American people to know what happened, and we want the federal government to say they made a mistake, something happened that should not happen again in America." Daris Long and Melvin Bledsoe have testified before several congressional committees on terrorism, and in June, they appeared on former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's Fox television show to discuss a new documentary about their relationship and work together. "Losing Our Sons" was recently released by the Boston-based nonprofit Americans for Peace & Tolerance. Long and Bledsoe are also working to try to get Andy Long and Ezeagwula awarded the Purple Heart, but the Obama administration opposes the proposal, saying Muhammad was tried on criminal charges in state court, not for acts of terrorism. The two said they think the U.S. government does not want to admit that there may be extremist Muslim groups in the United States because it does not want to offend Muslims in general. "I think the government doesn't want to admit this thing because it goes against their political bent at this point," Long said. "The government, by their non-action, has basically denied what this thing really was." Bledsoe said there is evidence that federal authorities were aware of his son's involvement with extremists while in Nashville, and they were aware that he traveled to Yemen. "People have to understand that (my son) wasn't an angry black kid from the ghetto of Memphis," he said. "I'm from middle America. My son went to college to get a higher education because I afforded that to him to do that." It was while in Nashville, while attending college, that his son began studying Islam, Bledsoe said. Bledsoe said he plans to speak out until the government acknowledges that the 2009 shooting was a terrorist act and that people should be aware about the possibility of extremist Islamic groups in the United States. "This could happen again, maybe on a larger scale," he said. "Nobody should have to go what I am going through. Nobody should have to go through that. Nobody in America, it's not right." Muhammad said his attack was in retaliation for U.S. military action against Muslims in the Middle East. He pleaded guilty in July 2011 to capital murder and was sentenced to life without parole. The Memphis native also received life sentences for attempted capital murder and each of the 12 counts of unlawful discharge of a firearm filed against him. Pulaski County Circuit Court Judge Herbert Wright also added an additional 189 years in prison for use of a firearm in the crimes. Testimony during Muhammad's 2011 trial, before he pleaded guilty, revealed that he converted to Muslim while attending college in Nashville. He then spent 16 months in Yemen, where he taught English. While in Yemen he was arrested after he tried to use a fake identification card to cross into Somalia. He spent three months in a Somali prison before being deported to the United States. "In my view, my son was killed by a terrorist," Long said last week. White House spokeswoman Joanna Rosholm declined comment when asked about the documentary and accusations made by Long and Bledsoe. Cherith Beck, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Little Rock, did not immediately respond to a telephone call seeking comment. Published: Mon, Jul 16, 2012