When Nicholas Spehar visited Duluth this summer, he brought his grandmother flowers and took her to dinner, and he gave a young cousin a Navy SEAL frogman hat.
When he put the hat on the boy's head, said Spehar's father, Pat, it fell to the boy's shoulders.
"The word is, he hadn't taken it off in weeks," Pat Spehar said. "Nick was telling me that it was everything about that little boy that makes him want to fight for us."
Petty Officer 2nd Class Nick Spehar, 24, of Chisago City, Minn., was one of 30 Americans and eight Afghans killed Aug. 6 when Taliban insurgents shot down a Chinook helicopter in eastern Afghanistan. He was also one of two Minnesotans. Special operations service members were shot down when they rushed to help Army Rangers who had come under fire trying to capture or kill a Taliban leader, the U.S. military has said. It was the deadliest single loss for U.S. forces in the decade-long war in Afghanistan.
Pat Spehar described his son, a member of the Navy SEALs for almost four years, as a generous, easy-going man of "extraordinary character and honor" with intense, crystal blue eyes.
ADVERTISEMENT
"Nick was the kind of person that if you found yourself in a situation and you needed help for any reason, he's the kind of man you wanted," his father said. "If you knew Nick as a friend, you had something very unusual. He was very intense about his friendships, his loves, his commitment and compassion for people. He loved little kids, especially."
Pat and Annette Spehar, Nick's mother, grew up in Duluth, graduating from Morgan Park and Denfeld high schools, respectively. Many family members still live in the area, so the Spehars visit often. Nick Spehar loved Lake Superior and hunting and fishing around it, his father said. The family would bring up its boat to enjoy trout and salmon fishing on the Great Lakes.
Nick joined the military a couple of years after high school. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks of 2001 affected him deeply and were the driving force behind what led him to military life.
"Things were changing in Nick's heart," his father said. "I could see it from a young boy. He decided to make it his personal passion ... and joined the Navy with the intent on being a SEAL from the get-go. He told me, 'If I am going to take the time to do this ... I want to do it with the best men there are.' "
The SEALs who Pat met over the past four years were a closely knit group with many of the same characteristics as Nick, he said.
"Meeting more and more of them, you see the really amazing relationship," he said. "It's almost like they are cut from the same type of wood."
Pat discouraged Nick's choice of becoming a SEAL at first, he said, because of the toll taken on those who pursue the elite post.
"But I think it was one of the best decisions he's ever made in his life," he said. "It never did change him. Right up until the day he died he was the same."
ADVERTISEMENT
Nick was home on three weeks' leave beginning in May for his sister's wedding and a graduation beginning in May. Not one to relax for too long, he got busy on his family's property with extensive landscaping.
"In that three weeks, more happened around here physically to my land than it had in the previous three years," Pat said. "Nick: 'If you're not going to do it big, don't bother doing it.' "
While home, he was the happiest Pat had ever seen him. And, having talked to him the day before he died, Pat said he believes his son remained happy on duty because of the work he was doing in Afghanistan, "where he could be used to his fullest ability."
"He wanted to be able to be the one to stand between all of the stuff that's going on and what we hold dear; what we cherish and value here," he said.
His son left an indelible mark, he said, but "I was really hoping it wouldn't be this type of mark."
