On Sept. 19, 1996, Juan “John” Alvarez faced a moment that would change his life.
“This black mass coming toward us,” Alvarez recalled the moment his helicopter crashed. “We braced for impact without having time to do anything else.”
Alvarez, a Navy officer sworn in in 1986, trained as a pilot and later joined an exchange program flying special operations helicopters. Assigned to the 6th Operations Squadron, he was deployed to Ecuador to assist with border operations…