Remember Utah mayor and Army National Guard officer, Maj. Brent Taylor, who was killed in action in Afghanistan last weekend.
While Taylor is only one of the more than 2,400 Americans who have died serving the nation’s security in Afghanistan since 2001, his loss bears particular pain. It represents the end of a truly exemplary American life in service of the nation’s highest ideals. A husband, and father to seven children, Taylor had previously deployed on multiple combat operations. Yet Taylor’s unceasing choice of hard service, even as his family and political career grew, is striking.
So what motivated this good man to keep answering the call? I never had the honor of knowing Brent Taylor, but reading about him, two factors stand out: his love of country and family, and his abiding faith. A Mormon, Taylor embodied his church’s particularly exemplary dedication to the nation — something we would do well to remember even as we laugh at comedies like “The Book of Mormon.”
Like many other Mormons who fight in the military or serve in the intelligence community, Taylor’s mission was at once his God’s and his country’s: to do that most beneficial. By his military training and experience, Taylor concluded that his most beneficial service meant again putting on his uniform and heading off to Afghanistan. The sum of Brent Taylor’s life and the measure of his words to his constituents all suggest his deep faith gave him peace in the choice of duty. His family echo as much. Prior to the start of his latest deployment, Taylor’s wife, Jennie, explained her sentiments about his continuing military deployments. Jennie told a local newspaper, “I joke with Brent that he’s either visionary or crazy. … I’m banking on the fact that he’s visionary.”
The humor speaks to a wife’s love, but also her reflexive support for Taylor’s choice to serve. That takes us back to the special nature of the Taylor family. After all, how many wives or husbands would support their partner’s choice to keep going back to war again, and again, and again?
We do not have the evidence to answer that question. But the abundant anecdotal evidence suggests that many service personnel choose to leave the military because their partner has pushed them toward that choice. That is not to say such a choice is in anyway wrong or immoral. On the contrary, those families of service have already and forever done far more than most of Americans for America. Still, it does make Taylor’s choice of continuing service exceptional.
Yes, as an intelligent and devoted family man, Brent Taylor knew that war might leave his wife without a husband and his children without a father. But with his family’s support, he went anyway because his duty to his God and his country demanded it. While some sad and lonely voices might say he was selfish to leave his family, history and a world of both danger and hope prove that Brent Taylor’s choice was right. And now he has entered the great spiritual pantheon of recent American heroes, alongside others like Robert Kelly and David Greene.
As you go to the voting booth tomorrow, spare a thought for Jennie and her children. They and Brent are immortal reminders of the possibilities and costs of citizenship. And of why American glory still endures.
