BY CLIFF SMELLEY
Telegraph Staff Writer
One week before Memorial Day, members of the community turned out to line portions of U.S. 301 and Call Street as the body of Army Staff Sgt. Seth Plant was part of a procession that traveled through Bradford County and Starke on its way from Jacksonville International Airport to St. Johns Family Funeral Home in St. Augustine.
The Florida Twin Theatre marquee read: “Our Hometown Hero, SSG Seth Plant.” The son of Mike and Joy Plant was raised in Starke until his family moved to St. Augustine.
Plant, 30, died May 10 in Alaska as the result of injuries sustained during a bear attack while participating in a training exercise. He served in 3rd Battalion, 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment and had been stationed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage since July 2021.
Mike Plant, in a phone interview with the Telegraph-Times-Monitor on May 20, said, “When we started to sit down and discuss what we wanted to do and all of that, the first thing I said was, ‘We have got to allow him to come through Starke one more time.’”
It was also important to do that for the benefit of the people living in Starke and Bradford County who might not be able to attend the visitation or funeral.
“If anybody wants to pay their respects to Seth, we’re honored to bring our son through,” Mike said, adding, “Our heart is here even though we live in St. Augustine. Our heart is with our family and friends in Bradford County.”
A love of service to the United States
Mike said it almost seemed like his son was destined to join the Army or at least serve his country in some way. Joy was a full-time member of the Florida National Guard when she and Mike met. Her brother, Barry Carlton, served in the Army Special Forces.
“He grew up around it,” Mike Plant said.
Mike shared a memory of how Seth had a BB gun when he was a child. He laughed when thinking about how Joy was worried, much like the mother in the “A Christmas Story” movie, worried about Ralphie shooting his eye out. Mike told his wife, “You’ve got to let the boy be a boy.”
Seth was 8 years old when he greeted his dad’s return home one day with the question, “Can you see the 3rd Battalion on the right?” Mike said he told his son he didn’t know what he was talking about. Seth then aimed his BB gun and shot a toy Army man, which went flying into the air. It was then that Mike saw a bunch of Army men in the grass.
Mike said he told Seth, “Son, let’s just be an 8-year-old.”
Seth, though, responded by saying, “Dad, this is what I want to do.”
“I knew from that moment on that it was inevitable that he was going to be a soldier,” Mike said.
In an interview with News4JAX that aired on May 12, Barry Carlton said, “He wanted to do everything I did. He followed in my footsteps, joined the Army and became a paratrooper. Ten years after I was in Afghanistan, he went to Afghanistan.”
While in Afghanistan, as a part of Operation Enduring Freedom, Seth survived an improvised-explosive device and a rocket-propelled grenade as well as a machine-gun attack by four members of the Taliban that left others around him dead.
One day before the bear attack, Mike talked to his son. Seth’s desire to be in the Army and to serve his country was as strong as it was when he was 8. Mike said his son told him, “I love what I’m doing. This is what I was meant to do.”
Mike said Seth received “tremendous remarks” from captains, majors, colonels and generals who always said, “We know where your son stood.
It was an attribute instilled early in Seth. Mike said he told his son, “Don’t mince your words. Say what you mean so everyone knows exactly where you’re coming from.”
Mike recalled an incident when Seth was preparing to talk with higher-ranking Army officials about the planned dismissal of four soldiers. Seth told his father, “Dad, I see potential in them that (the higher-ups) don’t see. I’m going to fight it. I’m going to let them know they can transfer them to my command. I will make sure they meet the standards the Army’s wanting.”
“He was a true leader,” Mike said. “I was very, very proud of the way he went about things.”
Carried by God to the other side
In a statement, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said a den with two brown bear cubs was located near the area where Seth and soldiers were training. While investigating following the attack, the department said a brown bear approached the area. Cyndi Wardlow, a regional supervisor with the department, said information collected suggests “a defensive attack by a female bear protecting her cubs.”
As Seth’s family learned more of the details regarding the timing of the attack, Mike said he began thinking back to what he was doing the moment it happened. Mike, a photographer, was taking pictures at the time, so he began looking back at what he had photographed.
What he discovered was that within four or five minutes of the attack, he was photographing a waterfall that spilled into a pool and out into another waterfall. In between the two waterfalls was a bridge.
To Mike, that bridge seemed to be a sign from God. It represented a person going from one side (this life on earth) to the other (eternal life in Heaven).
That photo has been a comfort to the family.
“It was kind of like God telling me, ‘I’m carrying him over to the other side.’ That picture will be a part of the little things we hand out at the funeral,” Mike said.
A love of life
Seth was devoted to the Army, but his life was so much more. In fact, you could say he was devoted to people and life itself.
His family will tell you that he never met a stranger. As part of the May 12 News4JAX interview, Joy Plant said, “He was the life of the party. He was loved by everybody in the community, his family and the military.”
He and his sisters — Amber Hersey and Gini Solano — liked to joke that he was the “favorite child.” The youngest of the three siblings enjoyed a strong bond with his sisters and enjoyed playing with his nephew and nieces.
It is said that Seth loved to sing, dance and laugh. He enjoyed playing the drums, shooting guns and riding motorcycles. He loved to cook and eat.
He also enjoyed the outdoors. Mike said Seth wasn’t wild about the idea of living in Alaska at first since that put him so far away from his family, but he embraced the beauty of his surroundings there. Mike said he and Seth talked once via Facetime when Seth told him he wanted to show him the view of the mountains from the back balcony of the apartment he was living in. As he showed the view to his father, Seth said, “Man, how cool is that?”
Seth’s favorite holiday was Independence Day. He’d put on his most-patriotic attire and spend time at the lake with his family on July 4, which would end with enjoying the fireworks in downtown St. Augustine.
It seemed Seth made the most of life.
“He just did what he wanted to do,” Mike said. “That was to serve his country, fight for those who are less fortunate, love his family and love his God. He lived completely with passion.
“Not a lot of us can say, ‘I’m doing exactly what I’ve wanted to do all my life.’ I’m just thankful he got to do that.”
The perfect tribute to Seth would be to do the same.
“I was telling everybody here, if you ever want to honor my son, live life fully and live it with passion,” Mike said. “That’s the way he lived.”
Mike said as he and his family were looking at family photos, they came across one of the family that was taken at the church they once attended — the Starke Church of God.
“We were all kind of smiling,” Mike said, “but Seth — with his spiked hair — has this beaming, beaming smile. We were like, ‘Boy, if that doesn’t tell the story of Seth right there.’”
