Esprit de Corps

A former professional soldier, Scott Taylor has been editor and publisher of Esprit de Corps since 1988.

Throughout the mid-1990s, this little independent magazine embarked on a campaign to expose crime and corruption in the upper echelons of the Canadian Forces. After exposing a number of top-level cover-ups and scandals while defending the rights of the rank and file soldiers, Scott was dubbed the “Voice of the Grunts” by the Globe and Mail, a “Bone in the Brass’ Throats” by the Toronto Star, and a “One Man Army” by the Toronto Sun.

Since the inception of Esprit de Corps, Scott has logged over one million air miles as a war correspondent reporting from such global hot spots as the Persian Gulf, Cambodia, Western Sahara, Croatia, Bosnia, Iraq, Turkey, Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Macedonia, South Ossetia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Afghanistan.

Since August 2000, Scott has made a total of 21 trips into Iraq to report on the effects of the UN sanctions, the ravages of depleted uranium following the 1991 Gulf War, and the heightening tensions with the United States. In March 2003, during his last trip prior to the United States’ intervention, Scott Taylor was asked to leave Iraq for fear of his being a spy for the Israeli Mossad. Following the swift U.S. victory, Scott returned frequently to Iraq to view first-hand the ongoing humanitarian crisis plaguing this still embattled country. Then, for five harrowing days in September 2004, he experienced the rare occasion when "getting the story becomes the story." Held captive by Ansar al-Islam mujahedeen in northern Iraq, his release generated a wave of international media coverage. He then returned to Iraq in 2005 in order to brief the U.S. soldiers on the Turkmen people of the country.

Scott regularly appears in the Canadian media as a military analyst, and is the recipient of the 1996 Quill Award for outstanding work in the field of Canadian communications. That same year, he also won the Alexander MacKenzie Award for journalistic excellence.

A weekly columnist for the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, he is also a columnist for Embassy Magazine and has contributed to the Ottawa Citizen, Maclean’s magazine, the Globe and Mail, Toronto Sun, Reader’s Digest, and the Global television network as well as several international publications which include the Magyar Nemzet, Indian Defense Review and Al Jazeera. He also serves as an advisor to the CBC Radio play "Afghanada." Scott also gives presentations to The Executive Committee (TEC) and was named their 2006 Speaker of the Year. In 2008, London based Press TV declared Taylor to be the 'unembedded journalist of the year'

Taylor is the author of seven best-sellers. His titles include Tarnished Brass: Crime and Corruption in the Canadian Military, Tested Mettle: Canada’s Peacekeepers at War (both with Brian Nolan), Inat: Images of Serbia, Diary of an Uncivil War: The Violent Aftermath of the Kosovo Conflict, Spinning on the Axis of Evil: America's War against Iraq, and Among the 'Others': the forgotten Turkmen of Iraq which deals with his experiences in northern Iraq, published in October 2004 by Esprit de Corps Books. In the spring of 2009 Douglas and MacIntyre published his first memoir entitled Unembedded: Two decades of Maverick War Reporting. On April 19 t010 Esprit de Corps Books published his latest work entitled Unreconciled Differences: Turkey Armenia and Azerbaijan.