Combat is a true test of friendship

Courtesy Photo | Staff Sgt. Chad Spitz (left) and Sgt. Nick Kletzien, inseparable since childhood, were both deployed earlier this year with 1st Battalion, 121st Field Artillery Regiment, in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. This photo was taken at Camp Navistar, Kuwait, a little more than a month after they arrived in theater.  

01.10.2007

Courtesy Story

40th Public Affairs Detachment

Sgt. 1st Class Vaughn Larson
1st Bn., 121st FA Regt.

CAMP NAVISTAR, Kuwait — Staff Sgt. Chad Spitz and Sgt. Nick Kletzien, currently stationed at Camp Navistar together, have been nearly inseparable since the day they met during a playground football game at Sheboygan Falls Middle School in Wisconsin roughly 15 years ago.

"We were both from Waldo," Spitz, 26, explained. "If you went to school in Sheboygan Falls and you were from Waldo, you were an outcast – a Waldonian."

As they grew up, their parents would remark that to find one, you only had to look for the other. As adults, they hunted and exercised together. Kletzien was hard-pressed to explain why their friendship endured, as the two men have several differences.

"We challenge each other," Spitz observed. "If one does something, the other does, too.

"We're more like brothers than friends," he continued. "We finish each other's sentences – which is sick."

Spitz was the best man at Kletzien's wedding, and Kletzien will serve as best man when Spitz marries. Kletzien moved to Sheboygan after he married. Some time later, Spitz moved to a home one block away from Kletzien.

"I was there for a month before he knew I was there," Spitz recalled.

Both joined Battery B, the Wisconsin Army National Guard unit based in Plymouth, in March 1997 and went to Basic Training at about the same time – but to different Army posts. Kletzien trained to serve on self-propelled howitzers, while Spitz learned how to operate in the battery's fire direction center.

Spitz later transferred to battalion headquarters and then to Battery C in Sussex, the unit he is serving with now. Kletzien stayed with Battery B.

The two have participated in four warfighter exercises in Fort Lewis, Wash., Fort McCoy, Wis., and in Milwaukee. Both plan to stay in the military for 20 years.

And now they are performing the same mission while deployed, albeit for two different companies. The Milwaukee-based 1st Battaion, 121st Field Artillery Battalion reconfigured from batteries to companies for this deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Spitz said that being deployed with his best friend is difficult.

"Combat is the true test of a friendship," he said. "There's a lot that can make one stray from the other."

Kletzien disagreed.

"Us being here makes our friendship stronger," he contended. "Both of us being here going through the same stuff, we can talk about [that] for the rest of our lives. We'll have more in common than we ever did, because we're living the same life.

"We'll be old men someday – though I'm sure we'll be back here before it's all said and done – and we'll have lots of stories," he continued.

Still, Kletzien admitted that he frequently checks on the status of his friend.

"It's like pins and needles," he explained. "You never know if something's going to happen. It's a good thing that we're separate – if we were together, something could happen to the both of us."

Spitz said that finding time to spend with his friend is more difficult now, even though their tents are only a few paces apart, as mission schedules and different convoy destinations keep the two busy.

"I used to take it for granted," Spitz said. "Not anymore."

• Date Taken: 01.10.2007
• Date Posted: 01.10.2007 12:37
• Story ID: 8785