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Adventures of a Singing Sergeant

  • Published
  • By Jennifer Fetterly
  • The Lodi Enterprise
LODI, WISCONSIN --  Dressed in sharp dress blues, Master Sergeant Anne Seaton could feel her soprano voice growing stronger as it echoed off the marble columns of the Nation's Capitol Rotunda.

Of all the places her voice has taken her before this was to be the most poignant. Just feet away from her, former First Lady Nancy Reagan was paying her last respects over the flag-draped coffin of her husband.

Seaton's job was to fill the room with one last musical tribute.

Since 1997, when she joined the Air Force, Seaton has performed at state funerals, Fourth of July celebrations, sung the National Anthem at ballparks and paid tribute to veterans by serenading them.

It's a mission she doesn't take likely.

"There is a lot of pride involved, and a lot of perfection," Seaton says of her more than 100 yearly performances across the country. "You always want to give a stellar performance because out there in every audience is a veteran, and every single performance is a reward for them for everything that they have put forward."

Growing up as a kid in Wisconsin, Seaton always loved music. Her parents, Allison and Jim Seaton, saw she had talent and encouraged her to study voice. Soon she was winning teen competitions and earned a vocal performance degree from Ohio State University and wanted to make a living singing.

Now set in a lifetime musical career, Seaton loves to tell of all the things she has done during her military singing career like how she sung at the Brewers game during Mark McGwire's homerun record series.

"It was a packed stadium, a national audience," Seaton says slipping into gee-whiz excitement. "It was really cool. Just me on the ball field singing the National Anthem, I thought 'wow, this is awesome.' "

But there's also a lot of hard work. The United States Air Force Band has seven performing units, the members of which serve as "America's International Musical Ambassadors. Air Force bands add a face and a voice to the military's mission.

"Sometimes we are the only first person contact people have to say thanks to the Airmen who are out there, working so hard for us," Seaton says. "People will come up to me and tell me thank you, and I tell them I will pass it on."

The Lodi native, who is stationed on Bolling AFB in Washington D.C., says her unique role serving as a go-between to the public and the USAF is not lost on her. On the darkest day of Sept. 11, she too saw smoke rising from the Pentagon and worried about her fellow Airmen in danger.

"Very shortly after 9/11 we went on tour and we were talking with people, and I would say that I had more hugs on that tour than ever before," she remembers. "People just wanted to express their grief and frustration and wanted us to continue on."

She says that tour, along with singing at the funerals of former presidents Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, will always be poignant memories, and will always remind her she is representing the United States in every song she sings.