Sikhs and Sacred Ground Imagine the terror. You are in a temple,
a safe, sacred place, preparing for a morning service. In the
kitchen, you are busy cooking food for lunch, while others read
scriptures and recite prayers. Friends begin to gather for the
soon-to-start service. At the front door, you smile at the next
man who enters. He does not smile back. Instead, he greets you
with hateful stare and bullets from his gun. Such was the scene
Sunday at a Sikh gurudwara in Oak Creek, Wis., just south of
Milwaukee, where a gunman, Wade Michael Page, killed six and
critically injured three others before being shot down by law
enforcement agents. As Page began his shooting spree, terrified
worshippers sought shelter in bathrooms and prayer rooms. Rumors
of a hostage situation surfaced, and those trapped inside asked
loved ones outside not to text or call their cell phones, for
fear that the phone ring might give away their hiding place. The
first police officer to arrive on the scene stopped to tend to a
victim out