Service: ARMY
Component: ACTIVE DUTY
Name: DICKHUT, NICHOLAS MICHAEL
Rank: SGT
Pay Grade: E05
Date of Death: 2012/04/30
Age: 23
Gender: MALE
Home of Record City: ROCHESTER
Home of Record State: MN
Home of Record Country: US
Unit: HHC, 5TH BATTALION, 20TH INFANTRY REGIMENT, 3RD SBCT, JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, WA
Incident Geographic Code: AF
Casualty Geographic Code: AF
Casualty Country: AFGHANISTAN
City of Loss: KANDAHAR
Casualty Release:
DOD Identifies Army Casualty No: 338-12
Burial Location:
Grandview Memorial Gardens
1300 Marion Rd SE
Rochester, MN 55904
Obituary:
The funeral service for Sgt. Nicholas M. Dickhut will be 11:00 AM Tuesday, May 8, 2012 at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church officiated by Rev. Mark McNea. Burial will be in Grandview Memorial Gardens with full military graveside honors. Friends may call from 5:00PM to 8:00PM Monday, May 7th at the River Park Chapel of Macken Funeral Home in Rochester.
Sgt. Dickhut, age 23, died from injuries while engaged in combat April 30, 2012 in Zharay, Afghanistan. He had been serving with the 5-20 Army Infantry Regiment and attached to the 82nd Airborne Division.
He was born December 31, 1988 in Burnsville, Minnesota. He grew up in Stewartville and graduated from high school there in 2007. He helped initiate the Chess Club and won many trophies with his skill. He attended post-secondary classes at Rochester Community and Technical College while a junior and senior at Stewartville High. In 2008 he enlisted in the Army and was stationed in Tacoma, Washington. He was first deployed to Iraq and then to Afghanistan in December of 2011.
On October 28, 2011 he married Aliesha Glidden in Rochester. He met Aliesha at the young age of 14 and they had been good friends before and during their marriage. She survives.
Nick was considering the options of attending flight school in Arizona after military service or re-enlisting with the hope of attending jump school and being part of an airborne unit in Italy. He was a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, an international organization dedicated to researching and re-creating the arts and skills of pre-17th century Europe.
In addition to his wife he is survived by his parents, Jacqueline and Randall Carson of Rochester; two half-brothers, David Carson, at home and Christopher Dickhut of Fayetteville, AR; a step-brother, Keith Rosendahl of West Concord and two step-sisters, Natasha Carson of Rochester and Alexandria Rosendahl, of Owatonna. Also surviving are his maternal grandparents, Lloyd and Marie Dickhut of Rochester. He was preceded in death by two uncles, Michael Dickhut and his godfather, David Dickhut and an infant cousin, Idris Bryant.
REUTERS Photo:
Sgt. Nicholas M. Dickhut was the first Minnesota casualty in Afghanistan in 2012. The 23-year-old Stewartville soldier was a forward observer on the front lines in Kandahar and became the subject of a famous Reuters photo two days before he was killed in a fire fight. The photo is below [reuters.com]
