Nodaway County native serves USA in 130th Air Wing

By Beverly Clinkingbeard

It was November 21, 1974. Glenn and Norma Mackey presented the USA with a fourth son, Seth. He joined three older brothers, Scott, Todd and Tracy.

Glenn and Norma were farmers in Nodaway County and when it was time, Seth joined his brothers at West Nodaway School. Later, Mackeys would move across the IA/MO state line, and in 1993, he graduated from South Page High School, College Springs, IA. After graduation Seth attended Northwest Missouri University and in 1996 he enlisted in the Air National Guard.

At the time, the world was in his words, “quiet,” and the young man thought the Guard had something to offer in the way of training and funding for college. He joined the 139th Air Wing, St Joseph, and after training at a tech school in Texas, was an electrical environmental technician on C130 aircraft. Little did he know how “unquiet” the world and life for him could become.

By 1998, Seth was in Kuwait building a base in the desert while living in an air conditioned tent. A month or so later he was in Germany working on C130s as support for Kosovo. Yet in 1998, he was sent to Alaska to assist with a Guard history project that at some point was neglected. That suited him fine as he always enjoyed history and thinks it important to document. Meanwhile, he was dating a girl named Christine that everyone calls LeAnn. He encouraged her to come to Alaska, but not liking cold weather, she declined.

After he came home the world was quiet and he resumed regular Guard duty while working at the Western Regional Diagnostic Correctional Center in St. Joseph. He married LeAnn in 2000. LeAnn has three children from a previous relationship, Chyse, Kade and Shalen.

September 11, 2001. The world was no longer quiet. He was activated to augment security at the 139th base. As well, a daughter, Amarette, was born in 2001. In March 2003, Seth was sent to Saudi Arabia in a support role for Iraqi Freedom. From Saudi Arabia to Qatar, he flew in maintenance capacity to Mosuo, Iraqi, Djibouti, and back to Qatar. The military had a rotation system and wherever the planes went, so did the entire crew. When he was at Tabek Base in Saudi Arabia there was the largest contingency of C130 aircraft stationed outside the United States.

He was home for a couple months and was sent to Uzbekistan in support of action in Afghanistan. The unit was located on a former Russian military base and there were areas roped off that were designated mine fields. The groundwater was also unsafe because of nuclear waste.

The 139th returned and Seth went to work at the treatment center in Maryville. In 2005, he started work at the Clarinda Correctional Facility, Clarinda, IA. In 2006, he went to Texas and cross trained into the security forces. From Texas he went to New Mexico and worked on the USA/Mexico border with the border patrol. This lasted four months.

He came home and in 2007 was deployed to Saudi Arabia to provide security at Eskan Village where US personnel were housed while training Saudi Arabian’s for base security. He was there for six months.

In September 2008, the 139th Security Forces started training with the Missouri National Guard for a deployment to Afghanistan. The priority mission was to help the Afghan people. He was a part of providing security for interpreters, and other military personnel, the Afghanistan National Police and Army were included as a counter insurgency mission. They were located on a former Russian base and would go out to the provinces and districts on people-to-people missions. By then, daughter, Amarette, was in school at South Page, and the school gathered school supplies to send to an Afghanistan elementary and junior high school.

By 2011, Seth was in Baghdad, Iraq. Base security returned officially to the Iraqis and he was on the last C130 to fly out of Baghdad. He surmises he was there for the “Lights On and Lights Off” in Iraq. When he arrived the first time he watched Tomahawk missiles streak across the sky from ships in the Red Sea.

It was routine Guard duty in St. Joseph, until 2014. His brother, Scott, passed away and Seth had been away a chunk of his daughter’s life. It seemed the right time to call service life complete. Today, he lives back in Page County, works at the Clarinda Correctional Facility, and is also a reserve officer with the Page County Sheriff’s Dept.

Thank you, Seth, for the many times you pulled on your boots for your country and went in support of others who matter to someone somewhere. When asked what advice he has for a young person he said, “Do the hard things when you’re young.”

‘Til next time.