Early Life
Echanis was born in Nampa, Idaho. In private conversations Echanis offered his belief that having been raised in the traditional Basque culture of his family, although he was not of Basque decent himself, influenced his abilities to endure hardship and pain. He enlisted in the US Army in 1969 upon graduation from Ontario High School, choosing to graduate early and enter the service. According to the Echanis family those stories offering he enlisted in lieu of going to jail are false. 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. His cousin, Joseph Y Echanis (United States Air Force) had gone missing in 1969 while on a mission in Laos and Echanis hoped he might be able to learn something of his fate if he could get to Vietnam.
Read more about this topic: Michael Echanis
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“...to many a mother’s heart has come the disappointment of a loss of power, a limitation of influence when early manhood takes the boy from the home, or when even before that time, in school, or where he touches the great world and begins to be bewildered with its controversies, trade and economics and politics make their imprint even while his lips are dewy with his mother’s kiss.”
—J. Ellen Foster (1840–1910)
“The great passion in a man’s life may not be for women or men or wealth or toys or fame, or even for his children, but for his masculinity, and at any point in his life he may be tempted to throw over the things for which he regularly lays down his life for the sake of that masculinity. He may keep this passion secret from women, and he may even deny it to himself, but the other boys know it about themselves and the wiser ones know it about the rest of us as well.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)