Michael Echanis

On September 8, 1978, at 13:00, Echanis, Chuck Sanders, Nguyen "Bobby" van Nguyen, and General Alegrett died in an aircraft accident at the mouth of the Sapoá River near the Nicaragua/Costa Rican border.

Echanis developed a two-week hand-to-hand Instructor combat course sponsored by the United States Army John F. Kennedy Center for Military Assistance (USAJFKCENMA) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The program was authorized in December 1975 and Echanis was formally appointed the "Senior Instructor and Advisor to the USAJFKCENMA Hand to Hand Combat/Special Weapons School for Instructors" in a Memorandum For Record signed by Major Jerry C. Williams, then Chief, PSD, at the JFK Center. Six courses were presented in 1976. Echanis' combatives program was titled the "Hwarangdo Hand to Hand and Special Weapons Program".

Echanis was historically a free style fighter and after his wounding and recovery he traveled around the US challenging and successfully fighting a number of black belt ranked studio owners/operators. Echanis served as the martial arts editor of Soldier of Fortune magazine from 1974 to 1976. Echanis was vetted by now deceased San Francisco martial arts instructor Art Gitlin. This was at the request of SOF publisher and editor Robert K. Brown, well before the 1978 printing of the SOF-paid-for book series ("Si Gung Art Gitlin – Haak Lung Chuan", by Michael DeAlba, Fighting Knives Magazine, January 1996, p. 71). According to Gitlin he was to "smoke out" whether Echanis was just one of many "ninjas" then petitioning SOF in the hopes of publicity or self promotion.

Echanis attended basic training at Fort Ord, California, and went on to airborne training at Fort Benning, Georgia. In 1970 he volunteered for duty in Vietnam where he served with Company C (Rgr), 75th Infantry, FFV/USARPAC as a scout-observer.

After his medical discharge in December 1970, Echanis returned to Ontario. He renewed his study of Judo and trained in Karate with now Ninjitsu Sensei Toshiro Nagato who had become a childhood friend According to a family member Echanis trained for a short time as a boxer during this period. This was under Al Berro, who lived and trained fighters in Boise, Idaho. Echanis fought several times as a boxer in the heavyweight class but left boxing to continue his study of the Eastern martial arts.

Echanis was born in Nampa, Idaho. He enlisted in the US Army in 1969 upon graduation from Ontario High School. Echanis had long been interested in the military and came from a family where his father, Frank, and his uncles had all served during World War II. In published articles, Echanis indicated that many of his skills at stealth and concealment were inspired by his reading about American Indians and trying out these techniques when hiding from local police.

Michael Dick Echanis (November 16, 1950 – September 8, 1978) was an American enlisted soldier and self-styled "soldier of fortune". In 1970, he served briefly in "C" Company, 75th Ranger Regiment Infantry in Vietnam. Echanis then made his living as a martial artist, writer and editor. He was the martial arts editor for the magazine Soldier of Fortune (SOF) from 1974 to 1976. He died while working as a private security contractor in Nicaragua at the behest of the Nicaraguan National Guard. This was reported by SOF in an article published after the incident.