Luis Alejandro Velasco

Luis Alejandro Velasco was just twenty years old when he was a sailor with the Colombian Navy and assigned in the port of Mobile, Alabama, where he and his crew were refurbishing the Colombian destroyer, the Caldas. Luis and the others had been there for eight months and had made local friends and shared many nights of drinking and partying together. Luis had great memories of those times.

Near the end of their tour of duty in Mobile, the men watched the movie, "The Caine Mutiny." Luis was struck and with the horrific storm that the USS Caine encountered. Although Luis had never been fearful of venturing out into the ocean, the images from the movie stayed with him and he felt a looming unease about embarking on the trip home to their home base in Cartagena, Colombia.

But after the destroyer weighed anchor and set...