Posted on 05/22/2020 2:27:56 PM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
Decades before a security camera caught Michael Taylor coming off a jet that was carrying one of the world’s most-wanted fugitives, the former Green Beret had a hard-earned reputation for taking on dicey assignments.
Over the years, Taylor had been hired by parents to rescue abducted children. He went undercover for the FBI to sting a Massachusetts drug gang. And he worked as a military contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan, an assignment that landed him in a Utah jail in a federal fraud case.
Some of those who know Taylor say he is a character of questionable judgment, with a history of legal troubles dating back well before the Utah case. But others praise him as a patriot, mentor and devoted family man, who regularly put himself at risk for his clients, including some with little ability to pay.
“He is the most all-American man I know,” Taylor’s assistant, Barbara Auterio, wrote to a federal judge before his sentencing in 2015. “His favorite song is the national anthem.”
“Michael Taylor was the only person in this great country that was able to help me, and he did,” a California woman whose son was taken to Beirut, wrote to the sentencing judge in the Utah military contracting case. “Michael Taylor brought my son back.”
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
The motto of the SAS.
Taylor is pretty well known in the contractor world. He works mostly alone for a reason.
if you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much room.
How so?
He’s known as “difficult”. From what I’ve been told the article sums his behavior up nicely.
Its a good motto.
Doesn’t always work out that way, though.
From what I’ve read about the Ghosn caper, etc.... Taylor definitely sounds like the kinda guy you want on your side if you’re facing extremely difficult circumstances. Kind of amazing, though, if he didn’t expect the Japanese to come looking for him. Will be interesting to see what happens from here.
Some of those who know Taylor say he is a character of questionable judgment,
C’mon. These guys wouldn’t be who they are without ‘questionable judgment’.
One simple rule is don’t get caught.
YES!!!!
I think this is a spectacular story, and the Japanese government deserved the egg on its face.
A whole lot of people would say that doing risky mission after risky mission indicates "questionable judgement", but the US depends on having a supply of such men.
“I think this is a spectacular story, and the Japanese government deserved the egg on its face”
Yes and clearly if Ghosn was a local yokel, nothing would have been said.
De Oppresso Liber,Free the oppressed.Sounds like he lives it.
Hear,hear
A whole lot of people would say that doing risky mission after risky mission indicates “questionable judgement”, but the US depends on having a supply of such men.
The more a general is accustomed to place heavy demands on his soldiers, the more he can depend on their response. Clausewitz
If our soldiers are not overburdened with money, it is not because they have a distaste for riches; if their lives are not unduly long, it is not because they are disinclined to longevity.
Sun Tzu
Brave men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.
Seneca
Private contracting exists for a reason.
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