Michael D. Echanis (November 16, 1950 – September 1978) was a former United States Army Special Forces and 75th Ranger Battalion enlisted soldier, ultimately working for the CIA as a contractor. He was killed while working for the CIA in Nicaragua in 1978 in a plane crash along with his colleague Charles Sanders and members of the Nicaraguan armed forces, due to a bomb placed on board.[1] Jon Ronson, author of The Men Who Stare At Goats, cites associates of Echanis who contend the explosion in the aircraft was from Echanis's own attempt to bomb a Sandanista camp with hand gernades and that the recovered aircraft showed evidence of a hand gernade going off inside the cockpit. Ronson also quotes sources that Echanis was peripherally involved with the US Army's First Earth Battalion and Echanis was also credited being the person who succeeded in stopping a test-goat's heart with projected psychic energy. Ronson also quotes another close associate describing Echanis "as basically psychotic".
Echanis was born in Ontario, Oregon and was of Basque descent.[2] He enlisted in the US Army in 1969 and received the Purple Heart and Bronze Star with "V" device for his service in a LRRP in the Vietnam War. Echanis served only 3 weeks "in-country" in Vietnam before being wounded in the foot and ankle when the truck he was in was ambushed in the An Khe pass in May 1970. There is no record of Echanis having any other combat experience prior to his mercenary service in Nicaragua. He was eventually promoted to the rank of Specialist 4.[3]
Echanis was well-known as a hand-to-hand combat instructor for the Special Forces, SEALs, and other military groups. He was a high-ranking black sash in Hwa Rang Do and the author of three military-oriented hand-to-hand combat books based on it. Echanis' rank as a "Sulsa", or the Hwa Rang Do equivalent of a Ninja, was given to him by Hwa Rang Do founder Joo Bang Lee. Echanis' involvment with Lee and Hwa Rang Do was less than three weeks duration, with most of his instruction provided by Lee's senior student, Randy Wanner. The Sulsa designation was more of an honorific, apparently so Echanis could introduce Hwa Rang Do to the US Military's Special Forces. The three books on hand-to-hand weapon combat, published by Ohara Press, are almost entirely Joo Bang Lee's composition with Echanis posing for the pictures as well as taking authorial credit. Many hand-to-hand combat instructors, then and now, find the techniques too complicated and "flashy" for real-world use.[4] Echanis had previously studied Judo and Tae Kwon Do. He served as the Martial Arts Editor of Soldier of Fortune magazine from 1974 to 1976.[3]
Echanis is buried at St. Johns Catholic Cemetery (a.k.a. Sunset Cemetery) in Ontario.[5]