Jarred Taylor

Jarred Taylor joined the U.S. Air Force straight out of high school and spent 15 years in uniform (13 years on active duty and 2 more in the National Guard), most of it as a Tactical Air Control Party (TACP) specialist, the operator on the ground who calls in airstrikes for troops in contact. He deployed twice to Iraq, later returned to the TACP schoolhouse as an instructor, and spent his off-hours doing what he'd wanted to do since he was 13 with an 8mm camera: make films.

That instinct followed him out of the service. In 2013 he teamed up with fellow veteran Mat Best to build Article 15 Clothing, and in 2014 the two joined former CIA contractor Evan Hafer to co-found Black Rifle Coffee Company, now one of the most recognizable veteran-owned brands in the country. Taylor helped shape its early business development and partnerships while never fully setting down the camera.

Taylor co-wrote the original script for Zone 15 alongside Billy Jay, later adapted into the feature film Range 15 (2016), which brought together Sean Astin, William Shatner, Danny Trejo, and a cast of fellow veterans for one of the more unlikely productions to come out of the veteran community. He followed it with the behind-the-scenes documentary Not a War Story, co-produced Action Figures 2 alongside Nitro Circus and Travis Pastrana, and lent his hand to VET Tv projects including A Grunt's Life and Check Point Charlie, continuing to build stories at the intersection of combat, comedy, and brotherhood.

That same instinct for high-stakes, boots-on-ground storytelling now drives his fiction. Deep Scythe, the first installment in a planned ten-book series, is a military thriller built on the same operational realism Taylor lived firsthand: tight tactical detail, fast-moving action, and characters shaped by the weight of command decisions made under fire. It's the opening chapter of the largest narrative he's set out to tell.