Happy Birthday, Quint (AKA George Taber)

He would have been 32 today. In honor of his birthday, I will share a “Quintessential” story with you.

In April 2019, Quint and his buddies were in the Trauma 1 portion of SOCM (Special Operations Combat Medic course) at Ft Bragg NC. Many weekends were spent at Wrightsville Beach either piled together in a motel room or camping out in the back of Quint’s truck, the “Taco.”

On one such weekend, Quint announced that he had signed up for “The Carolina Cup” on a whim: a long-distance SUP (stand-up paddleboard) race at Wrightsville Beach, NC. His buddies thought he was crazy to spend a Saturday this way, but Quint was determined. It would be a fun challenge as he was always interested in water sports.

Of course, he did not sign up for the introductory 5K SUP race, but the 13.5-mile race called “The Graveyard”-purportedly one of the hardest SUP races in the world, attracting competitors from the USA, Europe, and Scandinavia. He did no training. He did not even have a paddle board but easily solved that problem by going to a local surf shop and renting one for the day. 

Once he got to the beach starting line, he saw all these elite competitors unsheathe their high-speed, lightweight, custom-made boards from their protective cases and carefully assemble their carbon fiber paddles that weighed mere ounces. Quint chuckled at his fat, heavy, scarred, rental board, and clumsy fiberglass paddle, and thought- “This is going to be fun,” feeling somewhat like he was competing at the Tour de France on a fat-tired Schwinn. Undeterred, he had made up his mind so backing out now was not an option.

The course has a beach start and finish at the same location. You paddle through the surf, head north several miles in the rolling ocean swells, parallel to the beach until you hit Mason Inlet, turn inland until you reach the Intracoastal waterway, paddle south on the backside of Shell Island until heading back out to the ocean at the choppy shoals of Masonboro inlet, heading North again in the Atlantic until hitting the beach finish line where the race started. 

The whole time, battling various combinations of conflicting tides, currents, waves, winds, and other SUP’s and power boats. It was a long and exhausting race. He proudly finished 120 out of 134; 58 out of 76 in his age group with a time of 03:15:34. Exhausted but smiling, his buddies met him at the finish line and took him to a beach bar for a celebratory beer or two. 

He told us stories about that race and often wore his “Carolina Cup 2019” T-shirt with pride. He was proud of starting and finishing the race and was not concerned about his finish placement or time. Conversely, he never told us about breaking his ODA team run/ruck time record, as the “new guy,” up the 10K foot, Monserrate in Bogotá, Columbia on his first attempt after only being in the country to acclimate for a couple of days.  We only heard that story from his teammates after he passed away in August of 2022.

His “What’re you gonna do, not go” credo still rings true: It matters not whether you are first or last, it matters that you put yourself in the arena. You are still inspiring us today.

 Happy Birthday, Bud! See you at the top!

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Tab Taber is a Gold-Star Dad–father of SSG George L. Taber V, a Green Beret Medical Sergeant from 7th SFG who died during a violent storm on Mt. Yonah while in the Mountain phase of Ranger School in August 2022. Tab journals to process his grief and to recollect memories of his son. Occasionally he shares his written thoughts with The Havok Journal and on Instagram @gltiv. He retired from the Military (8 years Marines;15 years Army) in 2014 and now resides in NE Florida where he runs a 4th generation wholesale plant nursery. He can be reached at tabtaber7@gmail.com.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.