In a year, John Taylor has gone from fighting for his life on the side of the shoulder of Interstate 95 to fighting to live.

“It's been a good year,” the Roanoke Rapids Police Department detective said this morning, the one year anniversary of the day he was shot after making a traffic stop on the interstate.

Not only did he finish his criminal justice degree at Western Carolina University, graduating magna cum laude, he was recognized as outstanding non-traditional student of the year within his major course of study.

Surviving the shooting, Taylor adopted the Nietzsche philosophy of whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. “When I was shot, one of the things I wanted to do was finish my degree. I wasn't going to let someone else take that from me. I got extensions on my work. I didn't let that slow me down.”

Taylor.

Taylor reiterated, “It's been a real good year. Mike Moseley, Les Atkins and me ran our first official half marathon and plan to do a full marathon next October and have signed up for another half. I feel like I'm in better shape now.”

To become stronger was in one way a message to Michael Eugene Edgerton, the man who shot Taylor and later killed himself in the wood line near Halifax Academy. “It was kind of to prove, even though he is dead, that despite everyone confronting troubles, you should not be defeated by those setbacks. I took it as an opportunity to prove the life you live is really up to you. Instead of making it more a negative, I turned it into a positive. It wasn't easy. Instead of just coming back I wanted to come back better.”

One of the defining moments in his road to not only recovery, but self discovery, came through his membership in the Pi Gamma Mu Honor Society, when a professor also in the society sent him an email asking people to submit papers for presentation to scholars in Washington.

“When I was recovering, I spent a lot of time in front of the computer,” Taylor said, explaining the paper was written for a terrorism class just before he got shot.

His paper was called The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC): A Threat Against America.

In writing the paper Taylor proved that FARC, which began as a revolutionary movement to fight political unrest and has since grown into an organization controlling Colombia's cocaine trade, has become just as big a threat to the United States as Al-Qaeda. The Drug Enforcement Agency, he said, has established a connection between the two organizations.

“Next to Al-Qaeda, FARC has caused more acts of terrorism to the United States,” he said. “Mostly kidnappings,” that are committed on the South American continent.

The paper was accepted and Taylor was one of 40 people selected to present their work to a panel of scholars in the Kennedy Caucus Room of the Russell Senate Office Building. It is the same building where the Watergate hearings were held as well as hearings for Teapot Dome and the Kefauver Crime Committee.

On October 21, he presented his paper. “It was really surreal. It was a great experience, first to be selected and then to be there in that historic location. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

The paper is now being considered for publication in the International Social Science Review, an academic journal.

Callemyn

There was more to the trip than just presenting the paper, however. It gave him a chance to sightsee and the time for more self discovery when he visited the National Law Enforcement Memorial. “That gave me time to reflect,” he said, especially to remember a fellow officer with whom he worked as an officer with the Duke University Police Department.

Charles J. Callemyn would go to the Durham Police Department while Taylor would come to Roanoke Rapids. Callemyn, an Afghanistan veteran, died in 2007 while responding as backup on a call. “It's kind of hard to wrap your mind around. I feel elated I am here. There is some survivor's guilt that while I survived, so many don't.”

On Friday, Taylor goes to Raleigh with Chief Jeff Hinton to collect his advanced law enforcement certificate, the highest honor the state recognizes for law enforcement officers, a certification that takes into account training, years of service and higher education.

Taylor is also teaching law enforcement classes now. “It was empowering to be in the nation's capital,” he said. “It was very moving.”

His experience over the last year has brought him a greater appreciation of life. “I feel like I'm a better person. I do appreciate the gift. It's helped me realize what's important in life and to forget everything else. Sometimes you have to sit in front of the television on Saturday morning and watch cartoons with your son.”