Taylor began his work in Intelligence in 2016, after a grueling nine months-long interview and security clearance process; he entered the Intelligence Analyst Development Program for the Department of Defense. He had three tours of duty, all at Fort Meade, with some travel to DC and northern Virginia also involved. One tour had him working 12-hour night shifts, and giving presentations to the Director of the NSA! His final tour was a deployment to Stuttgart, Germany to work at U.S. Africa Command. He made quite an impression on Ambassador Laskaris...I had heard about the Ambassador's interest in Taylor, from Taylor, on a few of our near daily phone calls. Taylor died while on this deployment, in April of 2019; what an utter loss for his nation and the world!
Rich Superfine lovingly built all of these for us. They are all made of olive wood, which he chose to symbolize Taylor's interest in the Middle East, since olive trees proliferate there. The ebony wood corners on the flag box were added because Taylor was working at U.S. Africa Command and ebony trees grow there. Taylor earned these medals on his varied tours. The quote is from Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Stuttgart, Germany Memorial Ceremony
Ambassador Alexander Laskaris' Remarks:
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of General and Mrs. Waldhauser, thank you for gathering together as we remember our friend and colleague Taylor Horn.
Foremost in our thoughts are Taylor's parents, Brad and Pam, and his older brother Colby. The Horns and the Halls are united in grief, across two extended New England families, from Townshend, Vermont to Sunapee, New Hampshire, by the tragic -- and tragically premature -- loss of their beloved son, brother, grandson, and nephew.
We were fortunate to know Taylor just well enough to appreciate the obvious. He had forged a unique and meaningful life in 25 brief years. But most of us did not know the extraordinary and unique details.
Everything I know about Taylor's life and work before he arrived here at AFRICOM I discovered too late. However, while I did not know the details, I assumed them to be extraordinary.
I also learned that he was born and raised in a town just 60 miles south of my own home in Vermont...or at least what a diplomat -- or a soldier -- with 28 years of service can still call home.
Happily, I did get to know Taylor while he was here...well enough to feel most acutely the loss of his potential, knowing that great things were both behind and ahead for him. His knowledge and his intellect were immediately apparent, but so was his character.
I met Taylor while presenting a thousand years of African history over 90 minutes in the AFRICOM newcomers' course. Only the former school teachers among us will understand the electric thrill of meeting an engaged and engaging new student, someone who comes into class armed with equal measures of knowledge and curiosity.
He kept answering increasingly complex and arcane questions to the point that I actually had to stop for fear that I was excluding the rest of the people in the room. I pulled him aside after the class and asked a simple question that belied my surprise as well as my delight: "who are you and what are you doing taking my class instead of teaching it?"
I resolved to continue our conversation, more out of curiosity than anything else. As is often the case, work and other distractions intervened, and I did not follow up. Fortunately, Taylor's supervisor, Patty Voigt, reminded me that I was right to have been deeply impressed by Taylor. She added that if I spent some time with him, I would grow to like him as quickly as I had grown to respect him.
At Patty's advice and encouragement, I finally got around to inviting him up to my office for a discussion of his work, my work, and how both fit into the whole that is U.S. Africa Command. Afterwards, I resolved to integrate Taylor into the baseline discussions within the Command on events in our area of operations and -- more importantly -- how we should understand and react to them.
In our next and -- sadly -- our last conversation, I saw that this individual talent could function within a peer group of similarly gifted colleagues. I was certain that our deliberations, our products, our actions and ultimately our results would be enhanced by bringing him deeper into our internal dialogue.
I suspect that Taylor's approach to our area of operations -- and to our work -- would have been guided by the words of his fellow nature-loving New Englander. It was the philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson who wrote that "peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding." I believed that Taylor would have contributed to our work, and to the work of the American people, by helping us move towards the critical understanding of the conflicts that so challenge the African continent.
I walked away from our last conversation just as I had from our first encounter: still deeply curious as to what fortuitous mix of nature and nurture brought him to us. The obituary his family shared provided a partial answer. College at 15 years old and a masters by 21 speak to intellect, but his preferences for employment and vocation speak to his character.
He voted with his feet -- and his time -- and his choices reflect a clear commitment to social, political and environmental justice, from his home in New England to the global stage.
In a letter I sent to his parents, I shared a uniquely Vermont regret.
Once we were both done with our time at AFRICOM, I would have sought him out at a bookstore or a public house in Brattleboro: just Taylor and Alex talking about expeditions on both the Niger River and the Connecticut.
I might have invited him to snow-shoe up to the summits of the Appalachian Trail on New Year's Day.
The years have taken their toll on my own pace, so I probably would have had to ask Taylor to slow down.
Everything I now know about him through observation tells me that he was a young man going high and far, and moving fast. I have also learned that I was one of a legion of people who enjoyed watching his ascent.
That which I do not know rationally, however, I can discern through instinct. While Taylor could easily have been the first to summit Mt. Mooselauke, well ahead of me and even his peers, I believe he would have preferred to arrive in a group, the fastest and the slowest together.
It would have been Emerson's way; it is also both the Vermont and the African way; and I am certain it would have been Taylor's as well.
Taylor's photos from his walks around Baltimore and Fort McHenry
fear no art &
eclipse from federal hill
busy port &
lighthouse
Tattered Flag Flying Over Fort McHenry, Baltimore