Vietnam Vet with PTSD aimed at Westboro group

Marine veteran haunted by memories
By Matthew Hansen
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER


George Vogel drove his Ford pickup truck toward a group of people he thought were the infamous Westboro Baptist protesters.

The 62-year-old Omahan’s trigger finger rested on a can of potent pepper spray that can cause temporary blindness and vomiting. His grandson rode in the passenger seat.

But what Vogel saw as he leaned out the driver’s side window and twice sprayed the crowd outside the Saturday funeral of Marine Staff Sgt. Michael Bock is a 40-year-old memory he can’t shake, his wife says.

In the memory, Vogel is himself a young Marine. He has just climbed off the ship that has brought him back to the United States from a brutal tour of duty in Vietnam. And he encounters a group of anti-war protesters, young adults his own age, waving signs and screaming at him.

“He kept saying, ‘All I could think of was when I got off the boat,’” Marlene Vogel said Monday of the lone phone conversation she has had with her husband since he was jailed Saturday on suspicion of 16 counts of misdemeanor assault.

The charges stem from the 16 people — none of whom are believed to be Westboro Baptist members — who were allegedly harmed by Vogel’s bear repellent, a Mace-like chemical that burned their eyes, turned their stomachs and sent several to the hospital.

“In no way did he want to take away from the honor of Sgt. Bock, the solemn occasion for his family,” Marlene Vogel says. “But he was not thinking clearly. All he saw in his mind were those protesters when he got off the ship.”

Vogel is a Creighton graduate, a father of four, a retired vice president of a telemarketing firm and a longtime member of a veterans group that aids families of Marines killed or wounded in combat.

He is also a longtime victim of post-traumatic stress disorder, his wife and his attorney said Monday. He is spooked by loud noises. He has long suffered nightmares — his children, when young, grew used to hearing him call in artillery and scream for help while asleep.
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Sunday, August 29, 2010

600 Patriot Guard Riders stood vigil for Staff Sgt. Michael Bock
Staff Sgt. Michael Bock, 26, who died August 13 in Afghanistan's Helmand province