NO REGRETS TOUR

Sidney Walton was born in New York City on February 11, 1919. He joined the Army at 22, eager to fight the Nazi regime. He enlisted 80 years ago this month, eight months before Pearl Harbor.  

In 1944, his unit shipped out to Europe, but Sidney had to stay behind, recovering from a training accident. His unit ended up in the Battle of the Bulge and Sidney never heard from them again. 

Sidney was assigned to the China-Burma-India (CBI) theater of combat, where he served as a corporal and medical technician in the 34th Infantry, 8th Division, and remained until the war's end.

After returning home, Sidney pursued graduate studies in geology at Yale and taught at Duke University. In 1953 he met the love of his life, Rena Bell, in Boston on a blind date. They married and had a son, Paul in 1955, then moved to Bangor, Maine, where they had two daughters, Judy and Ellie, while Sidney worked as a civilian at Dow Air Force Base. 

In 1960 the family moved to San Diego, where Sidney worked for the federal government at North Island Naval Air Station and other defense facilities. He retired in 1982 after Rena's death from cancer. 

Sidney always harbored a lingering regret at missing a chance to meet Civil War veterans during the 1939 World's Fair in New York City. In 2018 he decided to make up for this regret. At the young age of 99, he set off with his son Paul on a "No Regrets Tour" with the goal of giving as many Americans as possible the chance to meet a World War II veteran before they too are all gone. To accomplish this he is visiting all 50 governors in all 50 states, bringing attention to the rapidly shrinking number of World War II veterans and the sacrifices they made to save this country. 

Sidney's journey has been full of unexpected surprises: He met the presidents of the U.S. and France, was honored at  the 2020 Super Bowl, spotlighted on the Today Show, World News Tonight, and Shep Smith, and given shout-outs at ball games, annual national parades, and other festivities. But Sidney humbly reminds everyone that these honors are really for the millions of men and women who bravely served during WWII; he is just a living representative.