John W. Mackey
Era: Vietnam
Military Branch: Army
John William Mackey was born and raised in Duluth, Minnesota. He attended college at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, graduating in 1968 with a degree in business administration.
He enlisted in the Army, and his MOS was a Personnel Specialist. He was assigned to Fort Benning, Georgia, and worked in the office that reassigned people to different training battalions. When he was sent to Vietnam, he was assigned to the First Infantry Division and also worked as a personnel clerk. He was stationed near Saigon, which is now Ho Chi Minh City, in the base camp Di An. He served there six months before being transferred to Cam Ranh Bay on the South China Sea for another six months.
After finishing his service in Cam Ranh Bay, he flew back to Fort Lewis, Washington, where he was discharged from the Army. After returning to Duluth to see his family, Mackey moved to the Twin Cities and went to work in retail. He and his wife, Judy, married a year later and moved to New Brighton before being transferred to Kansas City and back to Duluth. They eventually moved to Fort Smith, Arkansas .
Mackey and his wife have two grown children and four grandchildren. In retirement, they split their time between Arkansas in the winter and Minnesota in the summer.
