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No matter what time of day it was or where he was in the world, Marine Staff Sgt. Michael Bock always put his family first.
A Valentine's Day didn't go by without Bock sending his wife roses, even while she was back home and he was overseas.
The 26-year-old made sure to get up in the middle of the night recently while in Afghanistan, so he could get online and watch his 3-year-old son, Zander, blow out his birthday candles.
“He was such a wonderful husband and an excellent father,” said Tiffany Bock, 27, of Omaha. “Family was always the first thing on his mind.”
She said her husband, a member of the 3rd Combat Engineer Battalion, was shot and killed Friday in Afghanistan. No other details were available.
Michael Bock was the third Omaha-area service member to die in the fighting in Afghanistan.
Bock grew up in Springfield, Neb., and attended Elkhorn Mount Michael High School for two years. Then his mother retired from teaching at Omaha Northwest High School. The family moved to Leesburg, Fla., where his father had a job.
Bock graduated from Leesburg High School in 2002. About a month after graduating, he started boot camp.
“He wanted to be a good provider for his family, and he thought the military was the best way to do that,” Tiffany Bock said.
Louis Sojka, Bock's religion teacher at Mount Michael, remembered his former student as someone who carved his own path.
“He worked hard, and he didn't go with the main crowd,” Sojka said. “He did his own thing and found his own way.”
Bock was stationed mostly at Camp Pendleton near San Diego, but he was deployed twice to Iraq and most recently to Afghanistan in April.
Bock also served in Australia and Indonesia, and he received a Marine Corps humanitarian ribbon for his help during the tsunami recovery in 2004. He re-enlisted in the Marines twice.
“He was proud to serve his country,” his wife said. “But no matter what he was doing, even when he was working 16-hour days, he would still call and tell us he loved us.”
Michael Bock and Tiffany Scheiblhofer were high school sweethearts. He attended Mount Michael, and she went to Omaha Mercy. They met at a high school football game through mutual friends.
When Bock moved to Florida, the couple stayed in touch and made their long-distance relationship work.
Tiffany loved everything about Mike. He was outgoing and had a lot of friends.
When he was a sophomore and Tiffany a junior, the couple performed together in Mount Michael's production of the musical “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”
The couple, married in 2003, had been together for almost 11 years. They planned to buy a home in Omaha.
“He just wanted to come home and be with his family,” said Tiffany, a homemaker and student in Metro Community College's culinary arts program.
Besides his wife and son, Bock is survived by parents Sandra and David Bock of Leesburg, Fla.; brothers David Bock, who lives in North Carolina, and Paul Bock of Peoria, Ill.; and sister Christine Bock of Omaha.
Contact the writer:
444-1336, leia.mendoza@owh.com
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