When Michael Lazio’s best friend Bob enlisted in the Marine Corp and left for boot camp after their high school graduation in 1965, he wanted Michael to go with him.
“I totally rejected that altogether and said I would never go to the Marines,” Lazio said. “But when Bob came home on leave in the summer of 1965 and came to visit me, he made an appointment with the Marine Corps recruiter. I told him not to bother coming to visit but he came anyway and insisted that I go to the recruiter.”
Reluctantly, Lazio ended up going to meet with the recruiter and enlisted for four years before leaving the recruiter’s office.
Michael Lazio
“It turned out to be the best decision of my life, although I didn’t realize it at the time,” Lazio said.
In February 1966, he went off to boot camp (MCRD San Diego). “It would prove to be a most shocking experience, standing in ‘yellow footprints’ and a Gunnery Sergeant yelling in my face,” Lazio said. “Vietnam was not on my radar whatsoever at that moment, but my mom must have known, as she burst into tears when I told her I had enlisted, and I always wondered why. I realized years later that she knew I would be going to war.”
He was born in Denver, Colo. and raised in Ellsworth, Kan., a farming community located in the middle of wheat country, which was also a County Seat town, which Lazio said is very similar to Platte City.
“My wife Kathy and I were high school sweethearts and lived only a block and a half from each other in Ellsworth in 1962. My dad owned the Texaco Station and Kathy’s dad owned the Western Auto store. My Mom had a master’s degree in vocal music and gave voice lessons, which is how Kathy and I met, as she would come over for lessons.”
His parents moved to Salina, Kan. in the summer of 1963 at the beginning of his junior year in high school.
Before graduating from boot camp, he made the rank of PFC (private first class). Only a handful of Marines achieve this honor.
His next year was spent preparing and training to go to Viet Nam, at various Marine Corps bases, including Camp Pendleton, Calif., Memphis, Tenn., Virginia Beach, Va., Cherry Point, N.C., Yuma, Ariz. and Camp LeJeune, N.C., before deploying to Da Nang, Vietnam in September 1967.
“I had been promoted several times to this point and held the rank of Corporal E4 when I arrived in Da Nang, and Sergeant E5 by the time I left to go home,” Lazio said. “I was attached to a Marine All Weather attack squadron VMA(AW)242 1st Marine Airwing - MAG 11(Marine Airgroup) using A6 Intruder aircraft and we were known as the ‘Batmen’. Our tail insignia was a huge black bat with a lightning bolt running through it. While serving as a flight line coordinator and NCOIC (non-commissioned officer in charge) of flight line operations, I survived the 1968 ‘Tet Offensive’ at great loss and peril to our outfit, and it’s only by the grace of God that I survived because he heard and answered my desperate prayers and saved me from death because of his great love for me.”
In recognition of accomplishments during Lazio’s service in Vietnam, while under extreme difficulties and very limited resources he received a ‘Meritorious Mast’ on May 31, 1968.
He served two tours in Vietnam and finally came home in June of 1969. He then married his high school sweetheart, Kathy. They have been happily married for 53 years. They lived in Gladstone for more than 30 years before moving to Platte City in 2004. They have three children and nine grandchildren.
Prior to moving to Platte City, Lazio operated an American Family Insurance Agency for 22 years. In Platte City he serves as pastor of Bethel House of Prayer. “Bethel House of Prayer is a church and prayer ministry we launched in 2004 when we moved here, Lazio said.
“I also serve as a chaplain with the Platte City Police Dept. and lead the local (ministerial group) called the ‘Village Fire’. Our purpose is to serve and pray for our city in any way possible and build relationships across denominational lines to be friends of our city.”