Uss Greeneville In the News
Yokleys Tour USS Greeneville In Pearl Harbor, Its Home Port
Legislator, Wife, Son Receive Tour, Then Give Crew Special Auto Tag
BY TOM YANCEY
STAFF WRITER
State Rep. Eddie Yokley, D-11th, of Greene County, his wife Carolyn, and their son, Army Capt. Jordan Yokley, M.D., toured the USS Greeneville nuclear submarine earlier this month at its berth in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
Rep. and Mrs. Yokley were on the island of Oahu in Hawaii to visit Capt. Yokley, their oldest son, who is now an intern at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu. The hospital is only a few miles from where the fast-attack nuclear submarine is home-ported.
The Yokleys took a Tennessee license tag with the same number as the submarine named for this community -- SSN772 -- and presented it to the ship's commanding officer, Cmdr. Alan Dorrbecker. The tag includes a Greene County sticker.
"They really appreciated that," Yokley said.
The license tag was a replica of the tag that Dale Long, president of USS Greeneville Inc., the submarine's local support organization, uses on his personal vehicle.
The tag was provided as a courtesy to the submarine support group by County Clerk David Thompson.
Long is in regular contact with the submarine's crew and arranged for the tour by the Yokleys.
Rep. Yokley expressed his own appreciation to Long and the USS Greeneville, Inc. Committee, and to County Clerk Thompson.
Yokley said the USS Greeneville sent a van to a resort area about 25 miles from Pearl Harbor to pick him up, along with his wife, then collected his son, Jordan, when he got off duty at the hospital at 6 p.m.
The sub's top officers and a photographer were waiting on the gangway when the group arrived. (Tyler Yokley, the Yokleys' younger son, could not make the trip because of his classes at Middle Tennessee State University.)
Rep. Yokley said he and his family were shown every courtesy, and toured "about half of the submarine," including "all three decks where people work."
The state representative came away impressed that "every inch is used in those submarines." But he was even more impressed with the officers and crew themselves.
"I learned a new respect for those folks," said Yokley, a former U.S. Army paratrooper. He said the capability of the "billion-dollar submarine" named for this community "is mind-boggling."
The submarine's executive officer, Lt. Cmdr. Albert Alarcon, told Yokley he has never had to deploy a torpedo in more than 19 years as a submariner.
But Alarcon also told Yokley that he and everyone aboard "has to stay trained "as if they're going to have to deliver them the next day."
Yokley said the submarine presented him with "a very nice plaque" which he has already hung in his Nashville office.
The legislator said Cmdr. Dorrbecker expressed interest in obtaining a small bust or picture of Gen. Nathanael Greene, the Revolutionary War leader for whom Greene County and Greeneville are named.
The bust will have to be "very small," Yokley said, because of space limitations, and he said he has begun making inquiries about getting one.
A pamphlet that visitors to the submarine are given includes historical information about Greeneville, Greene County and Gen. Greene, Yokley said.
He said the sailors he talked to "are really proud of Greeneville" and obviously appreciate the support that this community has shown for the submarine for so long.
"I told them we were behind them," the legislator said, "and that this community appreciates the submarine's service and the sacrifices made by its crew and their families."
Yokley was told that, after the USS Greeneville left the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard on the Maine/New Hampshire border earlier this year on its way back to Hawaii, the sub traveled along the Atlantic coast and passed through the Panama Canal.
During his tour of the submarine, Yokley was also shown a picture of the submarine surrounded by "a lot of snow," a photo that was taken in January 2008 as the USS Greeneville arrived in the Portsmouth Shipyard for refueling and upgrades.
In Hawaii, Yokley said he and Mrs. Yokley got to walk on cooled lava, see molten lava flow into the ocean at night, and see other tourist sights for which Hawaii is known.
However, the legislator said that touring the submarine and meeting the crew "was the treat of my trip."