We have been learning about Mike Lamfers, who grew up on a farm east of Amiret and served with the Marines in Vietnam. He enlisted in the Marine Corps after graduating from Tracy High School in 1965.

Mike completed his Marine Corps training and deployed to Vietnam in October 1966 as a ground radio repairman. The Marines assigned him to Communications Platoon, 1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment. After service near the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between North and South Vietnam and retraining as a special landing force, his unit conducted an unopposed amphibious landing south of Chu Lai, Vietnam.

The unit had a port call in Taiwan before returning to Vietnam to a DMZ fire base called Gio Linh. Mike described their arrival.

“We got there by helicopter in March of ’67, but didn’t land in Gio Linh. We landed near there in the DMZ out in the trees (Mike chuckled) and walked a mile back and got set up. At that time they had 105(mm) artillery there.”

Mike began setting up battalion communications.

“It was getting toward dusk and Sergeant Marley and I were up on a hill, setting up one of these two-niner-two antennas. We were on the edge of the firebase. We had the antenna set up and were digging in a foot square remote that hooked to the antenna. Then you hooked wires to it and ran them back to the colonel for better communications.”

They continued their hard digging until the quiet dusk erupted.

“I had a flak jacket on and no helmet. Marley had a helmet on and no flak jacket. All of the sudden the whole horizon lit up. They were shelling us with our own (captured) 105mm artillery; with 82mm mortars; and with recoilless rockets. Our little area of five or six acres (Gio Linh fire base) took 364 in-coming artillery and rocket rounds.”

The two Commo guys were in the open and nowhere near protective bunkers.

“Marley and I were on this hill in this little dip and had shells going off. We were covered with dirt and Marley kind of crawled underneath my flak jacket and had his helmet on. I had my arm over my head with no helmet. We were laying there, pinned down. (Mike paused) We were laughing and crying and shaking. We began working our way back and got to an area that was more protected. They kept shelling us. (Mike paused and sighed heavily) We were maybe a quarter of a mile away when they hit a truck loaded with 105mm artillery rounds. It exploded. So, we had all that going off, too. That was my worst night in Vietnam. But Marley and I came out of it (without) a scratch.”

Not everyone survived.

“We had a young kid with the battalion for a week and on his first day in-country. He got a direct hit from an 82mm mortar. We’d have been next to him. We never made it back, but we had started digging a fighting hole there. We helped clean up the next day. That was our introduction to Gio Linh.”

Mike explained how that night was only the beginning of enemy artillery attacks.

“When we were at Gio Linh you’d hear this “Bum, Bum.” It was artillery. You’d look for a hole because you had two incoming rounds. It was a continuous thing up there — probably five or six times a day. You never knew when or where they were going to land.”

The Commo Platoon regularly pulled perimeter guard.

“We spent a lot of time on the perimeter at night. We sat in a bunker with an M-60 (machine gun). One day we saw one of our own jets get shot down. We saw Puff the Magic Dragon. It was a gunship and when they fired, every fourth round was a tracer. It looked like they were pouring water out in waves back and forth. We also saw Arc Light strikes from the B-52s. One of the spookiest things was when they fired flares and they’d come drifting down because all the shadows were moving at that point.”

Mike also ran radio maintenance missions south and discovered a way of obtaining new radios.

“When we were at Gio Linh we’d ride convoys to Phu Bai to take shot up or damaged radio equipment back. They had an Army base there that had more equipment than you could imagine. For a few rounds of AK-47 ammo or a couple hand grenades, you could get a brand new radio. (Mike laughed) I’d come back with a brand new radio with serial numbers that didn’t match anything. Nobody argued. They’d take and use them.”

Mike recalled attending Easter services while at Gio Linh.

“One thing I remember is that we were at Gio Linh during Easter and had Easter Mass. I’ve got pictures of the chaplain with 105mm ammo boxes piled up and that was the altar for Easter service.”

After six weeks at Gio Linh, Mike’s unit returned to Phu Bai to refit and take on replacements.

“We had a memorial down there. There were 32 (inverted) rifles that had helmets on them. I’ll never forget when they played the National Anthem. There wasn’t a dry eye in the place.”

Those six weeks on the DMZ had come at a high cost, but Mike’s Vietnam tour was not over and unexpected circumstances pulled him back to the DMZ one more time.

Please visit our new exhibit at the Lyon County Museum, The Vietnam War and Lyon County, to learn more about the experiences of our area Vietnam veterans.