John M. Taylor

About the Author - Taylor served with the 101^st Airborne Division as a platoon leader and battalion commander. Airborne and air assault qualified, a scuba diver and trained as a system engineer, he designed military command and control systems in civilian life before he turned to writing military thrillers. Using his background in nuclear weapons and extensive travel in the Far and Middle East, Europe and across the States, he packs a ton of adventure into an action-filled page-turner. For more than you ever wanted to know about Taylor, click here.

(Photo is not current - taken in the Fall of 1965 while on a scenic tour of Southwest Asia as a member of the Screaming Eagle's 1st Brigade task force. Click HERE for a more recent photo.)

CLICK FOR SNOWBIRD PRESS RELEASE:

101st Airborne Association invites all Screaming Eagles to the 2009 Snowbird Reunion
BOOKS
Coming soon from Screaming Eagle Press: Missing Sticks - a new novel about Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne Division on D-Day, a tribute to those men who were missing at the end of that fateful day. - Release party at the 101st Airborne Division "Snowbird" Reunion - see press release for details.
Faces streaked with soot or burnt cork, over six thousand paratroopers and glidermen of the 101st Airborne Division Screaming Eagles jumped or crashed into the swamps, canals, hedgerows and villages of the Cotentin Peninsula of France sometime after midnight on six June 1944.
Over four hundred C-47 Dakotas carried the Screaming Eagles through the darkness and into a thick cloud bank that night. One load of pathfinders crashed into the English Channel. Planes were seen to explode in midair. Others crashed and burned past all recognition. Just before sunrise, the initial glider serials slammed between the hedgerows, into trees and each other. Come dawn eighteen planes, each carrying a stick of paratroopers, were missing.
What could, what would the missing men have done if these sticks had made it safely to the ground? Not every man is brave in combat. Not every man is a hero. Everyone makes mistakes. However, in the fire of battle, a handful of heroes is forged as bravery overwhelms the fear that naturally keeps soldiers from harm. Would these men be the heroes?
This is a novel about those missing Screaming Eagles, their buddies and the friends and enemies they met on the ground on June 4th, 1944. Every character, every incident, is fictional, hopefully representative of the diverse men who flew into darkness and danger that fateful night, but never came back. This is a novel to honor their memory.
Available January, 2009 - ISBN: 978-1-879043-00-8
Gulf Winds introduces Uly Grant, a recently returned veteran of the war in Iraq, who is searching for a bit of tranquility among the Florida mangroves and manatees.
Gulf Winds won First Place in the Mystery/Thriller (Unpublished) category of the Florida Writers Association 2007 Royal Palm Literary Awards Contest.
Uly is tough, but a roadside bomb on the road to Baghdad killed his best friend and left him with a busted leg and Flash, a retired champion greyhound. (Click here to read the combat scene in Iraq - the prologue not included in the final manuscript.) In Gulf Winds Grant has returned to his old home along the banks of the Homosassa River and his life as a fishing guide in the waters in and around the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge where, as you might suspect, a woman leads him astray and conspiracies abound.
Click HERE for more about Flash and research in Homosassa and Chassahowitzka along the Florida Gulf coast.
Flash of Emerald
Flash of Emerald begins with Corporal Harry Stoner as a young Special Forces soldier thrust into the middle of the disastrous and short-lived Cuban counter-revolution, then takes you with an far older and, perhaps wiser, Stoner when he is summoned from his Washington DIA office to revisit the seamy side of Tampa's Ybor City, drawn into the middle of a drugs-for-arms transaction. Not just guns, this time the stakes are higher - a nuclear weapon stolen by fanatical terrorists, the beginning of a wild ride across today's South Florida and the Florida Keys where romance with a member of the Conch Republic threatens to sidetrack his mission.

Trade Paperback ISBN 0-7599-4288-9
new ISBN-13: 978-0-7599-4288-2
Behind the Green Water
Devon sometimes wished he were back in the Carolina swamps puffing his grandpa's pipe instead of tromping the Iraqi deserts and mountains with the French woman. Before the invasion of Iraq, US Army Major Nash Devon is sent into the Northern Iraq Sanctuary Zone on a search for Saddam's weapons of mass destruction where he discovers a nuclear conspiracy that includes America's allies. A thriller with roots in the first Gulf War, Behind the Green Water foretells the crisis between nuclear-capable nations of the Middle East and the religious conflicts that feed the fires of destruction. Behind the Green Water, although fictional, may help you understand the tensions and terror American and Allied forces are trying to keep at bay. Behind the Green Water explores the mystery of Christ and his family coupled with a mystery that predates Leonardo.
Trade Paperback ISBN 0-7599-4299-4
new ISBN-13: 978-0-7599-4299-8
Amazon.com Shorts
Life and Death is the first chapter in an evolving science fiction saga, The Beginning of Infinity. A chance encounter with a burst of energy from a distant galaxy may save Mac Dawson’s life as he floats outside the International Space Station, but at what cost to the Universe?
Mac Dawson and Jacqueline Grayson – are space wobblers – construction crew on the International Space Station - ISS, and about to enter a series of events that will enthrall readers. The continuing story will expand from the ISS to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Subsequent chapters will encompass intrigue, romance and dangerous betrayals as Mac and his partner Jacqueline evolve as leaders in the burgeoning societies of emerging space colonies.
From the author: I will never get to Mars- except in my mind. Someday, someone will. I want my stories to take me and the readers to outer space, to live the excitement, thrills and adventure while testing Man’s reach toward the boundless limits of Space.
Life and Death is available on Amazon.com as a downloadable Short, another evolution in the world of electronic publishing.
SAVE OUR SOPHIA.... a valued member of our K9 Forensics Rescue and Recovery Team needs our help after all she has given to us.
Sophia, or one of her buddies, is sure to make an appearance in next year's Gulf Waters.

Interested in how to write action and adventure, other military and thriller authors? Doing research on the Taylor family?
Some of the older articles in the Library might provide some insight, such as:
Articles about Central Command and the Rapid Deployment Task Force operations in the Middle East, and Hemingway and Key West. If you landed here on a genealogical search for Taylors, try The Taylors of North Carolina.
Dig deep and you will find a bunch of Vietnam photos and more recent events. Photos of the 101st Airborne Division from Vietnam in the 1960's (on the right, Vikki Carr and Danny Kaye visiting with 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division soldiers at Phan Thiet around December 1965), and more.
If you are interested in publishing your own book, see a historical perspective at Publishing - You or Them and a more current view at Blue Eagle Press.
Use a PDA? Read a book on your PDA, Kimble, Sony Reader or your smart phone while you are at the doctor's office? Want to publish electronically? Learn more about eBooks and electronic publishing at ePublish.

Awaiting a Minor Repair - JCSE Jump - MacDill AFB circa 1985
Rocky supervising the day's output.
Click on the photo for Rocky's transformation from Sheba, a clip of his evening performance and a view of our exotic plants and animals.
Links

� 2000-2009 John M. Taylor
Click HERE to contact the author and HERE to return to his Home Page
Excerpts may be used in electronic or print media with credit to John M. Taylor