Vince Kluge was born on September 21, 1955 in Milwaukee Wisconsin. He passed from this world to the next on December 13, 2023. He was 68 years old. He had been married to his wife Kim for 35 years. He had three beautiful children, Josh, age 31 who lives in Nashville, Ashley Trotter and Courtney Vitale, age 28 who are each married and live in St. Louis with their husbands Griffin Trotter and Mike Vitale. They were the joy of his existence and he made sure they knew how much he loved them in the last precious hours of his consciousness. His family had the most wonderful four hours with him which a family could ask for before he went to sleep for the last time. He was unconscious for about 26 hours before he passed peacefully.

In his early life, his family moved around a few times for his father’s job. He moved to St. Louis with his mother, Jeannine Kluge and brother Brian Kluge when he was 9 1/2 after his father, Vincent Anthony Kluge, passed away. His father was a veteran of World War II and is buried in Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery along with his mother. Vince’s parents were originally from St. Louis. 

He attended Bayless Elementary and High Schools and the University of Missouri St. Louis. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in astrophysics. Three months later he was hired by what was then called the Defense Mapping Agency; now it’s the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA).

He later earned a masters degree in system engineering from the University of Missouri in Rolla, and another system engineering certification, which was two classes short of a masters, also from Rolla. He worked at NGA for 39 years and one month at the time of his accident. He had accumulated one year and 10 months of sick leave so by the time he officially retired, he had been employed there for one month short of 42 years.

He became a Christian when he was in his last semester of college (1973) and adored Jesus until the day he died.

He was paralyzed in a car accident, October 25, 2016. The details of that are on CaringBridge if you would like to read them. In summary, he was in hospitals, or the Shepherd Center in Atlanta for acquired spinal cord and brain injury patients, for a total of seven months. His wife, Kim, left her job the day of his accident and was his primary caregiver for seven years.

Prior to the accident, his greatest desire was to serve God in any way he could. He played the bass guitar at Crosspoint Church, led Bible studies, took care of the finances, and was the secretary/treasurer of the church for about 20 years. After the accident, he was completely surrendered to his God, and was full of His grace. After making the initial adjustments of being on a ventilator, he was as calm and lighthearted as ever.

He said, thank you for everything that was done for him and never complained. He was in pain 100% of the time because a spinal cord injury is exactly what it says, an injury to the spine. So the spine is sending out mixed messages all the time, but he didn’t complain. Once the correct combination of medications was found, he always said he was OK.

Vince’s priority was to always serve Jesus with all he had. After serving Him so well at church, he continued to serve Him in the seven years after his accident. He did so, by receiving the God’s grace that was poured out to him, and totally surrendering himself, no matter how difficult life was.

It was a pleasure for all who took care of him. His family could not have done it alone. Vince had the most wonderful nurses in the world, extended family and friends who never stopped loving and supporting them in more ways than can be counted. For that his family is eternally grateful to God and the people He used to help them through those years.

Now Vince is worshiping Jesus in person, whom he adored for most of his life.

Merry Christmas sweet man. You deserve to be free!