Vietnam veteran and Prior Lake resident Dexter Sidney dies at 75

Prior Lake American

Prior Lake resident and Vietnam War veteran Dexter Sidney died June 8 of respiratory failure at his home in Prior Lake. He was 75 years old.

Sidney was profiled in the Prior Lake American shortly before Memorial Day, the subject of a story about a Vietnam veteran who was dying as a result of exposure to Agent Orange. At the time, Sidney knew he had just weeks to live.

Sidney was born in 1943 in Des Moines, Iowa to Donald and Blanche Sidney. His father, Donald, died of tuberculosis when Sidney was 15.

At age 16, Sidney and a fellow Dowling High School student, Ron Sweet, drove to Clear Lake, Iowa to see musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson perform as part of their “Winter Dance Party” tour.

“Ron had just gotten his license and he had his dad’s brand new Impala, so we told his parents we were going off to a basketball game and we headed north,” Sidney said during an interview about two weeks before he died. “We could tell we were in for some weather, but we made it.”

The musicians had chartered a plane to their next performance in Minnesota. However, due to wintry conditions and the late time of the flight, the plane crashed and everyone on board died.

“There was an announcement (Holly had) been killed in a plane crash,” Sidney said. “Ron and I met at our lockers and we said, ‘we were not there.’ Sure enough, the reporters showed up at school the next day asking if anybody had been there.”

Later in life, Sidney said Sweet asked him if he had ever told his mom about sneaking away to go to the concert.

“I said no,” Sidney said. “We both laughed because we knew we (would have) been grounded for the rest of our lives.”

In 1961, Sidney graduated from Dowling High School. Though he dreamed of going to the University of Notre Dame, his family didn’t have enough money for him to attend — instead, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps.

In 1965, Sidney had served four years and was due to be discharged, but the rest of his unit was heading to Vietnam.

“It kind of bothered me they were going off to war and I was going off to the good life,” Sidney said. “I probably did kind of a stupid thing — I re-enlisted.”

The Vietnam War began in November 1955 and lasted until April 1975.

In August 1965, Sidney boarded the U.S.S. Bayfield, from which he would become one of 5,500 Marines to take part in Operation Starlite, the first battle of the war fought only by Americans. For six days, Marines fought the Viet Cong near Chu Lai, Vietnam with coordinated ground, air and naval units. Sidney was on the ground.

About 10 days after he landed in Chu Lai, Vietnam, Sidney was ambushed and shot in the stomach near the right hip after a night guarding an airstrip perimeter. He earned a Purple Heart. In 1966, he was discharged.

Overseas, Sidney learned that he had been accepted to the University of Notre Dame.

“I was trembling when I opened (the letter),” Sidney said. “It said I’d been accepted and I was so excited about that, I couldn’t contain myself. ... I passed the letter around to all the guys on the helicopter and they all broke out in a chorus of ‘cheer, cheer for old Notre Dame!’ I’ll never forget that.”

When he was discharged, however, he realized he would not be able to afford the university. He then studied marketing and journalism at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa and graduated from Drake University in Des Moines. He went on to earn a master’s degree in Business Law from the Butler School of Law in Minneapolis.

He worked overnight shifts full-time at a packing house to put himself through school.

“As a kid, on fall Saturdays, he would tell me that if he were cut open he would bleed blue and gold,” Sidney’s son, Douglas Sidney said during the eulogy for his father. “A bit later on, as I neared high school — which to my dad meant the first few weeks of sixth grade — he pulled me aside and said, ‘now Doug, as you’re beginning to think about colleges, I want you to know — you can attend any university you’d like. In South Bend, Indiana.’”

His son did go on to attend the University of Notre Dame.

“Fast forward to high school when I finally got to do something for my dad for the first time in my life and meld his dream with what became also my dream and attend what I forever forward referred to as our Notre Dame,” Douglas Sidney said.

Sidney met his first wife when he returned from the Vietnam War and soon had a son, Douglas Sidney, and a daughter, Shannon Laska. Sidney joined the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, commonly known as the FDIC, during the 1980s.

He worked at the Wells Fargo Tower, formerly known as Norwest, in Minneapolis before working at GE Capital IT solutions and American Express. In 2002, he worked as a senior executive service officer at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington, D.C.

Sidney met his second wife, Karen Sidney, while working at Norwest.

“They were and will remain soulmates in every sense of the term,” Douglas Sidney said. “Karen brought out the absolute best in my dad every single day. They had the most loving relationship and being family, it was the cutest, sweetest thing ever to see.”

In 2005, he worked as the director of the department’s Minnesota office. In March 2015, the Vietnam War returned to Sidney in the form of lung cancer as a result of Agent Orange exposure.

Between 1962 and 1971, the United States sprayed about 20 million gallons of herbicides and defoliants chemicals in Vietnam, eastern Laos and Cambodia to destroy crops and clear the jungles that made combat difficult.

The majority of the chemicals used was Agent Orange, which contained dioxin. Dioxin was classified as a carcinogen for humans in 1997 by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. The chemical was later linked to increased rates of cancer as well as nerve, digestive, skin and respiratory disorders.

Sidney underwent surgery to remove a portion of his left lung as well as chemotherapy. Karen Sidney said Sidney decided at the time that if the cancer came back, he would not go through chemotherapy again as it was too difficult.

“Not even cancer nor respiratory failure could quell his indomitable spirit and sense of humor,” Douglas Sidney said. “That was only one of the many endearing, admirable qualities of my dad.”

After his diagnosis, Sidney finally got to go the University of Notre Dame on a trip with his son.

“My son said, ‘where do you want me to take you?’ I said, ‘I want to go to Notre Dame,’” Sidney said. “We really had a great, honest conversation — just the two of us. It was wonderful.”

The lung cancer came back and doctors told Sidney in February that he had six months or less left to live.

Sidney’s memorial service was June 16. The interment of his ashes was on Tuesday at Fort Snelling National Cemetery in a military ceremony organized by close friend and fellow Vietnam veteran Floyd Nagler.

“For as long as I’ve been able to talk and read, he has told me and written to me that I was his best friend and the brother he never had,” Douglas Sidney said. “It’s impossible to feel anything but the truest of love being told and reading that as many times as I’ve been lucky enough to from him.”

Sidney said in May that he had found heaven on earth through his marriage to Karen Sidney.

Sidney is survived by his wife, Karen Sidney, his son, Douglas Sidney, his daughter, Shannon Laska, his son-in-law, Scott Laska, his grandson, Andrew Laska and his stepsons, Erik Miller and Karl Miller.