How does one explain why a journalist does what he does?

That can be difficult, especially if the journalist's name is Scott Taylor. So let's leave it to Taylor's son, Kirk, to put some perspective on his father's adventurous career of tap dancing on powderkegs around the globe.

"That's what dad does," a 10-year-old Kirk Taylor said matter-of-factly in 2004, when asked how he felt about his father's harrowing five days as a hostage.

And no doubt it's what Scott Taylor will continue to do, even after the horrific ordeal as a hostage in northern Iraq where he was tortured and repeatedly told he would be beheaded at the hands of his captors, the mujahadeen of Ansar al-Islam in Iraq, a militant group linked to Al-Qaeda.

Ashley Fraser, Business Edge
Scott Taylor has built a burgeoning publishing business with his Esprit de Corps magazine and a series of books on the Canadian military.

On the day of this interview, Taylor is donning his publishing hat as publisher of magazine Esprit de Corps at his Ottawa office. But it's apparent that the 45-year-old soldier-turned-journalist/author is champing at the bit to get back on the firing line in some war-torn country, although he says he has learned to be more cautious. He does entertain thoughts of a long-overdue vacation and a tropical beach far from the battlefields - but only momentarily. Then, he is breathlessly discussing the next mission and tea with a warlord.

Indeed, as the young boy says, it is what Scott Taylor does.

1. What was your boyhood dream?

"I guess I saw myself becoming an artist, not so much because it was a dream but because it was an inherited talent from my father. Of course, being lazy, I saw it as the path of least resistance and always figured I'd end up in art like my father (Raymond). My father was a graphic artist and an illustrator and painted as a hobby. So I always thought that I could take a modicum of that talent and it would be worth following my father into art. I saw him as a positive role model. I thought it was great to be able to work at something you like, and he also ran his own business. I did work for my father briefly (in his art business), but then I made a decision to join the army. After that, I also worked as a graphic artist at the base in Germany (after completing his service) and also worked as the art director for Euroski magazine."

2. Where did you get your interest in the military?

"My father had a tremendous influence. He never served in the military, but I think his interest came from the fact that he was, like, 15 when the war (Second World War) ended. So he sort of had that fascination and that naivete that you'd have over a far-off war that you're living vicariously through, reading newspapers and whatever. He read about it and he had a huge collection of military miniatures, which I as a boy also picked up on. I also began a huge collection of military miniatures, which I still have."

3. Why did you join the army?

"It was a quest for adventure. I'd been reading about it. When I was in the college of art (Ontario College of Art & Design), I couldn't pursue things like track and field that I'd done in high school. So something was missing in my life. At that juncture, I was already engaged to my high school sweetheart, now wife (Katherine Taylor), who was one year behind me in the college.

"I could see my whole life narrowing up pretty damned quick at the age of 22. I could sort of see all that was before me. And it wasn't enough. I wanted to do something that was a bit of a challenge, sort of a rite of passage. And I guess the whole idea of taking on boot camp was a personal challenge. I guess if I could have signed up for one year I would've, but the minimum was three years. So I took that on."

4. What did your military experience do for you in terms of personal development?

Scott Taylor

"It's where I learned to edit. This sounds crazy, but I'm not talking about editing as in punctuation, I'm talking about editing life - through boot camp and through battle school and then again on the commando course. Each one got more intense, of course. It's something where your whole world is reduced to one shoebox that isn't inspected. That's where your personal life has to be contained, and that's for months on end. You've got to really think about what it is you put in that shoebox, and what it is that's important to you. It's the same thing with the commando course. When you're looking at what you should put in your knapsack, you have to think that you're going to carry that thing for a week. So you'd better need it. So the military really made me study what was important, and what wasn't, from a different level. That's helped in business and in writing. The military was definitely a regimented daily routine that taught you self-discipline and mental discipline. And you learned a lot about leadership, because you see good and you see awful. I loved the military. I couldn't do what I do now if I had not bought into the ideal of it. I had some good mentors there who were good role models."

5. How did you get started publishing the military magazine?

"At the time (1988), the Canadian military ran their own miniature airline of military aircraft that would fly between Germany and Canada. So I came up with the idea of a seatback entertainment magazine. You've got a captured audience, you've got controlled distribution and a targeted market. And we could sell ads to defence contractors and to people who would sell appliances to the military stores on the bases."

6. What motivated you to get into the magazine business?

"Honestly and truly, it was to have the ability to have adventures. As a private soldier in the infantry or whatever rank I would've achieved, I would have to go where they sent me. With the magazine, I could do things such as going on a naval frigate or a submarine or flying in different airplanes. The magazine opened up all those doors. I wanted to do the writing and go have the adventure, but for me the whole key was the entrepreneurial challenge and making the thing work."

7. How has the magazine done from a business perspective?

"We were profitable when we were building the business, but then we ran afoul of the Defence Department brass. In the initial stages, our independent, critical look at things was accepted because it was bringing attention to shortages of equipment and shortages of funding. But in '94 when we began to expose the corruption, and particularly the Somalia stuff (scandal), our defence contracting disappeared and we went from $35,000 a month down to like $3,000 a month in terms of ad revenue. They (Defence Department) pressured advertisers out and even free shipments that we were sending to the soldiers were burnt - on orders. We had to drop almost all of our staff just to survive and that was difficult. From that point forward, until I think it was 2001, at any point during that time we could have just thrown in the keys and declared bankruptcy.

In the darkest days, we were parking the car around the corner so they wouldn't repossess it. Bankruptcy wasn't just closing in on us. It was all around us. Family and friends that had bought shares were going down too. For my wife and I, who were major shareholders, it wouldn't even have been the opportunity for UI (unemployment insurance). It would have been straight to welfare. We had to face that reality. And even then I didn't regret trying to better the institution (army). If I didn't care about the military, if all I cared about was making money, then the decision (on editorial direction) would have been different.

"I think as a result of what we did, historians - who do not exactly like what we did - still acknowledge that we were responsible for bringing about massive reform in the Canadian military."

8. How did you avoid bankruptcy and get the magazine turned around?

"By '96, we had run out of rabbits that we could pull out of the hat. In September of '96, the Globe and Mail ran a front-page story that they were going to foreclose on an advertising debt that we had to them. If they foreclosed on us, that would have set in motion all the writs being pulled in. And I borrowed a train ticket to Toronto and spent the week banging on millionaires' doors trying to get enough handouts to keep the magazine going. We started to sell lifetime memberships in the company to shore us up, we got some five-figure donations, we got some forgiveness of debt and our position changed to the tune of about 90 grand in seven days. So that was enough so that we've been able to sort of pull ahead ever since."

9. So how's the magazine faring financially now?

"We relaunched the magazine in April of last year and brought about a bit of change. Now we're getting back some of the defence contractors and we're re-establishing sort of a tenuous truce with the brass. I still, of course, have syndicated columns and give commentary all the time, but the magazine itself doesn't have to be the leading battering ram that it was. We're pretty solid (financially). We're in a slow growth period, we've brought in some new staff and we've just launched four new books on the book side of the business. We now have nine titles (books) released."

10. You do motivational talks to business leaders. What's the message that you convey to them?

"The organization I'm involved with is TEC (The Executive Committee). The title of the talks is 'Beyond the Headlines.' We give them a little bit exposure to looking into the media with a little more detail from a guy who's been on the frontlines. But, with the hostage-taking ordeal that I went through, I try to give them a little bit of perspective by saying, 'If you think you've had a bad day, it could be a lot worse.' As a businessman, I can share a lot of things that we've had to put up with at the magazine. I can also get feedback from them. It's a bit of a peer support group."

11. Why have you opposed the U.S.-led military invasion of Iraq?

"It came from having been in Iraq many times before the actual invasion, knowing the situation on the ground, understanding the complexity of the Iraqi social fabric and knowing that it wasn't the simple equation that we were being told that it was. The opposition to Saddam (former president Hussein) internally was nowhere near what they were claiming that it was, and there was all kinds of evidence of that. Was he feared? Yes. Was he despised? No. And we're seeing that now, manifesting itself in the fact that the Iraqis are obviously capable of suicidal resistance but they were not taking themselves out against him. And then there are things like the so-called weapons of mass destruction that were supposed to exist.

"I was in Iraq in September of 2002 and the Brits leaked out the satellite photograph that they purported represented the reconstruction of a nuclear facility. Tony Blair (British prime minister) actually said they were 45 minutes from having the bomb. Well, the Iraqis took all of us out there, all of the foreign journalists, about 18 of us. They escorted us out to that facility and we walked the grounds and saw that there was nothing being done. It was overgrown and nothing was going on there. Nothing matched the satellite photograph. It's one thing to think the government is lying. It's another thing to know that they're lying. Just knowing that much and knowing what would happen afterwards would be similar to what happened after the first Gulf War when all (Iraqi) society broke down made me oppose it. The fear that the Iraqi people had was that they'd be left in a state of lawlessness. Sure enough, it all happened when the Americans came in."

12. How do you reflect on your five days as a hostage in Iraq in 2004?

"What I'm really thankful of is being alive. At the time, I never expected to live, and you resign yourself to that. It's hard to imagine but there were six times in five days when I expected to be executed momentarily and only at the last minute was it reprieved. You can only go through that so many times. You can only mentally prepare so many times. On the final day, there was quite a long stretch where I was chained to the bed just awaiting beheading. So, yeah, it was difficult to imagine getting out. And, when I did get out, I swore I'd never go back. Yet, I did go back last summer. I was invited back by the Americans because they had read my book and they wanted me to brief them on who these people were, the ones who'd taken me and the people who lived in the area.

"As a journalist, and it's got nothing to do with business, that's about the most rewarding thing you can have happen, knowing your work has made a difference. And the last visit (with the U.S. military) wouldn't have happened had I not been given that really rare inside view of Iraqi insurgency. I would never want to have to go through that again, that physical pain and the fear to achieve it, but it would all be meaningless if that information wasn't being utilized. And now that I know it is, it somehow has its own reward."

13. When you thought you were going to die at 44, were there regrets about what you hadn't done in your life?

"That was the funny part, that there wasn't a whole lot of regret. To that point, I lived a pretty damned good life. I had a 10-year-old son. I missed his birthday while I was in captivity. The part about not being able to see my son grow old and the vacuum I knew I was leaving behind ... yeah, that was the biggest regret.

"And then there was the anger at myself for having put myself into that situation. I was actually relieved when the Turkish journalist who was (a hostage) with me was let go, because I felt somewhat responsible for her situation. Once she was gone, I no longer felt responsible for her fate. The only thing then was the regret for my family and what would happen back home. Personally, though, there haven't been too many occasions when I've heard them call 'Strike Three' while I've got the bat on my shoulder. I've lived life - I was in a punk rock band when I was in the college of art, I went from being a soldier and a musician to an artist to a journalist to an author to whatever. So I didn't regret having missed too many opportunities, because I really haven't."

14. How has the hostage-taking affected your life's perspective?

"I think it's probably sobered me in a sense that I've faced my own mortality. I had to look at it at a time when I wasn't expecting to. Unlike being diagnosed (with an illness) and not having an out, once I was released from that I had a complete second chance and a clean slate. As far as taking those sort of risks again, I wouldn't do it. Even though I took the last trip, I insisted that the Americans come straight to the border. I was only going in with full protection. I wasn't going to do things that I'd done in the past. I will not work as an unimbedded journalist in those circumstances and that's unfortunate, because that's the only way you're going to get the real news out of there. All that experience, all those trips, all that vast knowledge that was accumulated unfortunately can't be put to good use as it should be. I look at this and say, 'OK, I've done my bit and I've taken it as far as it can go.' And I still give talks about it and I can still analyse the situation, but it's up to some younger guy or perhaps you to go in there now."

15. Would you let your son grow up to be a war correspondent?

"I don't think he's going to follow that path. I know he keeps a journal and quietly respects what I do. The day that I was released, it was huge news here in Ottawa. They ran my picture on the whole (newspaper) front page and the story of what happened. When he went to school, all the teachers were aghast at what was going on. They called him out of class and brought him down to a social worker and his principal. They asked him, 'How are you coping after your father's been tortured and beaten, are you OK?' And he said, 'Yeah, that's what dad does.' He was completely nonchalant and couldn't understand the adults all being excited about this, because that's what dad does. His main concern when I came home was what I'd gotten him for his birthday. Good thing I had some chocolates from the airplane."

16. What's your gut feeling about how the situation in Iraq will play out?

"Not good. The Americans just can't dash out now without this thing becoming an even bigger mess. And I've had discussions with senior people in places that you'd be surprised about that are asking me for advice. And that's always a scary thing, that they would seek advice from someone who was a strong critic of them going in. I think everyone wants to believe that they had a bigger plan. Everyone said it was the oil or this or that. But now you find out that now that they're in there, they don't really have an exit strategy. And simply getting out, as many are saying, as quickly as they can and then dealing with whoever survives isn't going to bode well for the entire region."

17. What's your view of the current state of the Canadian military?

"Money needs to be spent. Everyone agrees now that we've needed more troops and we've needed more equipment. The unfortunate part is that it's not a quick fix now. It's almost like draining a battery too far down. They've damaged the core. Until they start acquiring such things as strategic airlift and new armoured trucks, etc., we're going to find ourselves in a constant situation where our troops are being put at risk.

"The bottom line is that the Canadian forces need to rationalize what it is they've got. It's not a case of famine across the board. There are places where there is equipment being purchased for huge amounts of money that is of questionable value. We're buying a new multi-mission effects (armoured fighting) vehicle for close to a billion dollars. It's goal is to reach out and destroy enemy armoured vehicles at eight kilometres and knock down enemy aircraft. If you can show me how that's going to knock down a suicide bomber in a taxi on a street in Kandahar, you know, I might invest in it. I mean, we're buying equipment to fight an enemy that no longer exists. At the same time, when it comes to the stuff that we need, like armoured trucks to protect ourselves from suicide bombers, the designs exist and the money doesn't. The will to purchase them quickly is not there. The Americans have replaced every one of their trucks in Iraq with armoured vehicles. They recognize the need. They saw that the battlefield is no longer a linear battlefield. Even though it has cost them a fortune, they've done it. It's overwhelming what the Americans have. I saw how much firepower this one armoured cavalry regiment of about 5,000 personnel had, and it was more firepower than our entire army. Canada hasn't learned from that lesson. So we're still driving unarmoured trucks in Afghanistan."

18. Stephen Harper taps you on the shoulder and asks you for one piece of advice on how to improve Canada's military. What do you tell him?

"Start off with cleaning house, and do it quickly. There should be a full audit, a management sweep and it should be stripped down to the bare bones in the national defence headquarters. We've got far too much peace-time rust and too much bureaucracy. When they say that a major procurement system is going to take 12 years from request to fielding, I mean no business can run when you're buying equipment that you're going to receive 12 years from now. So they need to cut through that and change the mindset."

19. Who's the military hero you most admire, living or dead?

"I think I'd have to go with my old mentor, Warrant Officer Jim Decoste, who was killed in '93 in Croatia. In the end, he was a captain. He was killed in a head-on vehicle accident in the war zone. I went through the commando course with him. Even after I'd stopped serving with him, we remained good friends. He was the type of leader that you'd want to be, in that he could do all of the things that he asked of you and more. He was one of those guys who joined (the military) from high school.

"He believed in the military. I dedicated one of my books, Tarnished Brass, to him. He would have been really disappointed in me for having written that book, but once the dust settled he would have understood why it was necessary. He would have not have wanted to believe that his own superiors had broken faith with that which he believed in. He embodied all the values which I also took on and respected. He did the right things, but higher up the food chain people were using people like him to line their own pockets."

20. What's your next great adventure?

"Afghanistan, if I can do it. I want to do a book on a warlord in Afghanistan who wants to have a biography done on him. But the business is at a very fragile state. We're growing right now, but we've got to keep that growth going and my attention to it is needed. Yet, part of me wants to get away and have that adventure. That's part of the growing up that has happened. In the past, I would have gone off and done it anyway. Now, I realize we have to move forward on a controlled basis. I'm also hoping to somehow wangle a vacation. I've not had an actual full-on vacation since October of '89. I've travelled a lot, but I was always somewhere singing for my supper. We'd love to go off somewhere and spend a couple of weeks on a beach. It sounds crazy. And if I do that, I'm not going to want to come back."

Scott Taylor

* Title: Publisher/editor-in-chief, Esprit de Corps magazine.

* Born/raised/age: Scarborough, Ont./45.

* Education: Ontario College of Art & Design, graduated in illustration and graphic design.

* Family: Wife Katherine Taylor, one son.

* Career: Taylor has been publisher of Esprit de Corps and a writer for the magazine since 1988. He has also written six books, including Among The 'Others': The Forgotten Turkmen of Iraq (his latest book). Prior to founding Esprit de Corps, Taylor worked as a graphic designer for Euroski magazine and spent three years as a private in the Canadian military, based in Germany.

* Stat: As a war correspondent, Taylor has logged more than one million air miles.

* Accolades: Taylor has been a recipient of the Quill Award for outstanding work in Canadian communications and the Alexander Mackenzie Award for journalistic excellence. He was also named in 2001 to Homemaker magazine's list of Top 60 Men We Love.

* Boyhood hero: Terry Fox.

* Favourite book (besides his own): The Last Battle, by Cornelius Ryan (on the Second World War).

* Favourite Movie: The Man Who Would Be King.

* Pastime: Playing hockey.

Esprit de Corps

* Brass: Scott Taylor, publisher/editor in chief; Katherine Taylor, vice-president.

* Profile: Founded in 1988, Esprit de Corps is a magazine that covers the Canadian military scene and also publishes military books. Besides covering current Canadian military news and deployments around the world, the magazine also features historical stories on Canadian soldiers. The magazine is sold on newsstands and by subscription.

* Website: www.espritdecorps.ca

* Address: 1066 Somerset St. W., Suite 204, Ottawa, K1Y 4T3.

* Phone/Fax: 613-725-5060/725-1019.

(Gyle Konotopetz can be reached at gyle@businessedge.ca)