Aug. 25, 1972, dawned hot and muggy in Vietnam. The pilots of Fighter Squadron 161, stationed aboard USS Midway, readied their aircraft and went over the day's flight plan. Their mission was an early evening MiG combat air patrol over North Vietnam. Navy Lt. John "Jack" Ensch would serve as a radar intercept officer in an F-4B Phantom.

He wasn't worried. After 284 combat missions, and after shooting down two MiGs in a dogfight a few months earlier, he thought he was "bulletproof. ... It's always the other guy. ... You don't think it's going to happen to you."

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