When Survival Becomes a Choice: Leadership Forged in Captivity | Mike Penn

In this episode of The Naval Aviation Ready Room Podcast, host Ryan Keys speaks with Captain Mike Penn, USN (Ret.), a Vietnam War naval aviator, former prisoner of war, airline captain, and chief pilot whose life was defined by a single decision made under extreme adversity: to live. Shot down over North Vietnam in 1972, Penn survived an ejection that defied physics, endured capture and imprisonment, and returned with a renewed sense of purpose that shaped decades of service to others.