NO REGRETS TOUR

Sidney Walton was born February 11th, 1919, in New York City. At 22 he joined the Army, eager to fight the Nazis. Sidney enlisted 80 years ago, March 1941, 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 taught geology at Duke University and pursued graduate studies in geology at Yale. Eight years after WWII he met the love of his life, Rena Bell, in Boston. 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. 

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

Sidney always regretted 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. 

Therefore 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 surprises: He met the presidents of the U.S. and France, was honored at  the 2020 Super Bowl, spotlighted on the Today Show, and World News Tonight, and received the 2020 Patriot Award for the entire country.  Sidney humbly reminds the world that such honors are really for the millions of men and women who bravely served during WWII; he is simply one living representative.