He had just launched from the deck of the USS Midway (CV-41) on another combat mission over North Vietnam. Even after four wartime deployments to Southeast Asia, no mission was ever considered routine, but few naval aviators had more combat experience that Lt. Jack Ensch. This mission, however, proved to be the furthest from ordinary.
“On my 285th mission, it happened to me,” remembered Jack, who was a radar intercept officer flying in an F-4 Phantom with Fighter Squadron 161 (VF-161). “You’re flying along on your mission and suddenly your world turns to chaos. My pilot, Mike Doyle, and I were taken under fire by several surface to air missile batteries.”
With their aircraft badly damaged, they ejected over enemy territory.
On Aug. 25, 1972, Jack became a prisoner of war (POW). He would remain captive for the rest of the war.
The USS Midway Museum hosted its annual ceremony commemorating Vietnam War veterans on the 53rd anniversary of the end of the war. In 2017, The Vietnam War Veterans Recognition Act was signed into law designating every March 29 as National Vietnam War Veterans Day.
“During America’s involvement in the Vietnam War, more than 9 million U.S. military service members served on active duty and nearly 3 million service members actually served in the Vietnam combat area,” said Terry Kraft, Midway’s president and CEO. “Sadly, more than 58,000 American service men and women paid the ultimate sacrifice and more than 150,000 came home with physical injuries. Countless others, unfortunately, also suffered from psychological and trauma wounds that, even after more than 50 years, still have not healed.”
While the annual ceremony was a tribute to all Vietnam veterans, this year’s commemoration had a special focus on the prisoners of war of the Vietnam War and their heroic sacrifices. Understandably, the POW experience, both physically and psychologically, is virtually impossible to grasp. All of the POW endured intolerable and inhuman conditions at the hands of their captors.
“It is critically important that people should never blame the warrior for war, and that their incredible selfless service and sacrifice for their country should always be remembered.”
“You never know what you’re capable of doing until you don’t have any other choice but to do it,” said Jack, who spent 217 day as a prisoner of war, mostly in the notorious Hanoi Hilton prison camp. “As POWs, we supported each other. We had great leadership in the camp, and we kept a military posture that the North Vietnamese tried to break up, but they couldn’t. We all knew that we were still in the military, just serving in a different way in the prison.”
Although the challenges for each of the captive Americans were indescribable, it is equally difficult to comprehend the tremendous emotional impact the situation had on the families of the POWs back in states.
“My youngest daughter, who was only seven years old, was afraid that she would never see her daddy again,” said Kathy Ensch, Jack’s wife who was raising three young girls on her own when he was shot down. “There was no counseling for kids back then. I was on my own.”
Unlike other wars where the blood of U.S. servicemembers was spilled, Vietnam War veterans were not treated with the admiration and appreciation they deserved when they returned to the states.
“The tremendous bravery demonstrated by those who fought in Vietnam is the same degree of bravery shown by our service members in other wars,” said Terry, whose father was a Navy pilot and flew nearly 200 combat missions during the Vietnam War. “Those who fought in Vietnam were, for the first time our nation’s history, not welcomed home as the heroes that they were.”
“It was difficult serving there and seeing what my fellow veterans went through,” said Noble Robinson, a Vietnam War Army veteran who attended the commemoration. “The ceremony on Midway helps enlighten people that don’t understand what we went through over in Vietnam.”
Even after more than five decades, Vietnam War veterans still feel it is critically important that people should never blame the warrior for war, and that their incredible selfless service and sacrifice for their country should always be remembered.
“No one should be forgotten,” said Jack.
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