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NORTH OGDEN — With political campaigning reaching a crescendo and Veterans Day a week away, Jennie Taylor is sounding a conciliatory tone, aiming to unify the clashing voices behind support for the nation's military.
"We'd like to rise above politics and go straight to the heart of America. And to me, that's what that uniform epitomizes — is the right to have an opinion and disagree but to be respectful and considerate of those other opinions," she said Monday, as voting culminates in the bitterly contested U.S. presidential race.
Since 2019, the year after her husband Maj. Brent Taylor died in an attack while deployed with the Utah National Guard in Afghanistan, Jennie Taylor has spearheaded a series of activities leading up to Veterans Day, Nov. 11, to honor U.S. military forces. Brent Taylor also served as mayor of North Ogden, where Jennie Taylor and the couple's kids still live, and his killing on Nov. 3, 2018, caused shockwaves across Utah and beyond.
This year's varied Veterans Week activities kicked off Saturday with the unfurling of a giant 150-by-78-foot U.S. flag, "The Major," across Coldwater Canyon, east of North Ogden. The activities also include a blood drive on Thursday, a dinner gala on Friday and the Major Brent Taylor Memorial Ruck March on Saturday at 9 a.m. Supporters of the Major Brent Taylor Foundation, the nonprofit organization behind the Veterans Week events, will take part in the Veterans Parade in Layton later Saturday morning, carrying "The Lieutenant," a 30-by-60-foot U.S. flag.
Through it all, Jennie Taylor is purposefully putting a focus on unity, even as the tone boils over in the presidential race between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris, which culminates with the end of voting on Tuesday. Since Brent Taylor's death, Jennie Taylor has been a vocal advocate for the military and military families, chiefly through the foundation bearing her late husband's name, which she helped establish.
"There's a lot of bridges we can build in America today, and I think if we focus on building the bridges by finding common ground, we'll find that the common freedoms we have propel us forward," she said. "If we focus on the differences we have, if we focus on our right to fight and bicker and belittle, we will find ourselves diminishing the power of those very rights and freedoms that the military fight to defend for us."
Individual service members have their mix of political views, she said, but the varied military branches, as institutions, don't engage in partisan politics.
"There's no Republican army and a Democrat army and a Libertarian army and a third-party, Green Party army or military," she said. "The military fights for the American people. It fights for the American way of life. It fights to protect and defend the United States Constitution."
In a public Facebook message, she referenced the unity she feels each year when the flag dubbed "The Major" is hauled by a large group up the Coldwater Canyon trail to its unfurling point. It's to remain hanging until Nov. 17. "We live in a really politically divided time, and it's an election ... in a few days, and yet it feels like when we get together with and around and for that flag, we come together. It's a time to remember what the red, white and blue stand for," she said.
She also noted that the coming of November and the anniversary of her husband's death also generates strong emotions for her personally. Brent Taylor was attacked and killed by a rogue member of the Afghan military he was aiding during a ruck march, which prompted plans for the memorial ruck march on Saturday.
"Yes, there's sadness. Yes, there's grief. Yes, there's longing and aching," she said. "But more than anything, there's gratitude. I'm so grateful for this beautiful country. I'm grateful for this part of the country where I get to live."
