In Memorial: Maj. David G. Taylor

Got word yesterday that an old college friend, Major Dave "DT" Taylor, was killed in Iraq by an IED. Dave, who got married last year and had a four month old son and only three weeks left on his tour, was killed while training his replacement in their humvee.

Dave was a great guy. He was ROTC his whole time at Davidson, along with his close friends Rob and Mike. I still think of him wearing his fatigues around the dorm, sporting his trademark Dave Letterman grin, and sharing the bottle of Jaeger he had brought back from his summer in Germany. Dave was a year behind me, we were fraternity brothers, and he lived next door to me my senior year (his junior). I hadn't seen him in years, although we swapped e-mails a few years ago when the Iraq War was just starting up; we commisserated over Dave's frustrations with his graduate school program. My memories? He was always very level-headed, and was in some ways the sane moral anchor for his immediate group of friends, who are some of the best guys I knew in college. Smart, reactively funny, fundamentally decent and humane. And, obviously, a man with a strong sense of responsibility combined with the physical courage that the military requires. A really, really likeable guy. He'll be missed by a lot of people, including me. He died doing work he loved and knew to be important. Good night, Dave, and good luck.