Belmont Hill Alumnus Is Picture Perfect in Kuwait

A one time Belmont Hill School top athlete and current US Army officer was recently pictured in a major British newspaper while serving in Iraq.

Taylor Duke, 26, a second lieutenant and 2009 U.S. Military Academy graduate, appeared Aug. 20 in the Guardian, a London-based newspaper that boasts a daily circulation of nearly 300,000 and the second largest online readership of all English-language newspapers behind the New York Times.

The photograph is of Duke inspecting his convoy, as it prepares to leave Iraq for Kuwait.

(View Photograph)

Duke's mother, Amy Duke, a teacher in Arlington, said her daughter Erin, Duke's sister, spotted the photograph by Graham Crouch on Facebook shortly after it was published on the Guardian's website. The calls and e-mails soon followed.

"So many people have contacted me to say, 'Thank you,' and, 'Please tell Taylor we're thankful for his service,'" she said. "It's really wonderful that so many people appreciate his sacrifice."

Duke was a three-sport star at the Belmont Hill School, in football, hockey and lacrosse, before graduating in 2002. He knew he wanted to join the Army since ninth grade, according to his mother.

"I think I showed him one too many Top Gun movies as a kid," she joked.

Duke went on his Mormon mission after high school and then matriculated to West Point. After graduating in 2009, he completed Ranger School and has served in Iraq for the past four months.

He returned to Fort Lewis in Washington on Wednesday, Sept. 1, after a brief stay in Kuwait.

"He had a positive experience (in Iraq)," his mother said. "There were times when he was in dangerous situations, but he was always very positive in his e-mails and said he felt like they were making a good contribution to Iraq."

Duke is not expected to return home to Arlington until a three-week leave around Thanksgiving.

His mother said that after seeing the picture, people have told her that her son should go into the movies.

"Anyone looks good in a military uniform," she joked. "From a mom's perspective, he looked tired."

Duke also has two younger brothers, Wesley and Kyle.