John J. Black was born on January 20, 1913. He enlisted in the Regular Army on October 7, 1951 with the intention of going "Airborne" due to the influence of family members who had been in the 82nd Airborne Division and the First Special Forces Brigade both USA and Canada during World War II. He received Basic Training with the 9th Infantry Division at Fort Dix, NJ, and Jump School at Fort Benning Georgia.

Black's first duty station was the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, NC. Then, he was assigned to Division Headquarters Company of the 11th Airborne Infantry Division at Fort Campbell, KY. In Headquarter at the 11th Airborne, Black performed duties with the Pathfinder Platoon, the motor pool, and finally the mess hall.

Black meet and married his wife in Nashville, Tennessee. The birth of a disabled child cut short his plans of a military career and he received an honorable discharge on October 7, 1954. On that day, his pathfinder friends got in on a manifest and he became one of the few civilians to make a military jump.

Before serving in the Army, Black worked on the Brooklyn Water Front, unloading ships. When the 1954 movie, "On the Water Front" was seen, he realized the labor corruption was more truth than fiction and switched to the trucking industry. This career spans over 45 years, and ranges form driving 18 wheelers locally in the New York City area to covering all the lower all the 48 states hauling IBM machines. The last 20 years were more humanitarians as Black hauled produced "vegetables" from Homestead and Popano Florida to the North to keep all those Yankees healthy.

Black and his present wife Barbara are now three year residents of Sebastian. In Sebastian, he still keeps himself active helping hearing impaired children. Although he is also impaired, he feels like he wants to jump when he sees the sky divers "hitting the blast" at Sky Dive Sebastian. Unfortunately, he doesn't want to make a promise that a 72 year old orthopedic challenged body can't keep.