Editorial
Front Page - Friday, March 26, 2010
From a potato farm, to the White House, to Signal Mountain
David Laprad
Retired Vice Admiral Ronald Eytchison commanded nuclear attack submarines during 33 years of service in the Navy. He and his wife live on Signal Mountain.
Retired Vice Admiral Ronald Eytchison has commanded nuclear attack submarines in some of the most tense waters of the latter half of the 20th century, advised U.S. presidents and seen more of the world than the average subscriber to National Geographic magazine.
Moreover, his memoir detailing his 33 years in the Navy weighs in at just under 250 pages, the beginning and end of his military career bookends the Cold War and he’s earned enough awards and decorations to fill homes on Signal Mountain and in Italy. Yet the 73-year-old Eytchison is more eager to talk about what he’s doing today.
He provides a little history, first, though.
Eytchison was born in 1936 in Boise, Idaho. Skipping past his potato farmer roots, he says he graduated with distinction from the United States Naval Academy in 1958, earning a bachelor of science degree in Naval Science. Following graduation, he served aboard the USS Leonard Martin F. Mason in the Pacific Ocean as an engineer officer until 1960.
After undergoing nuclear power and submarine training, he served on the USS Skipjack, the world’s fastest submarine, as operations officer and navigator. While on the vessel, he experienced the Cuban Missile Crisis first hand.
“We were ready to go to war if the Soviets didn’t withdraw their missiles from Cuba,” Eytchison says matter-of-factly.
In 1964, Eytchison began serving as the engineer officer of the USS Sam Houston, a strategic missile submarine. Once his tour aboard the vessel was complete, he spent nearly two years studying international law and politics as an Olmsted Scholar at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. He then went on to earn a master’s degree in international relations from American University’s School of Inter-national Service in Washington, D.C.
Upon completing graduate work in 1968, Eytchison took part in strategic missile patrols in the Atlantic as executive officer of the USS Abraham Lincoln, which carried 16 Polaris missiles with a range of several thousand miles. In 1971, he assumed command of the USS Skate, a nuclear attack submarine on which he served 45 months.
“Our main goal was to prevent a nuclear war,” the admiral says. “We were ready to launch if we got the word, but we were confident we wouldn’t have to because we were serving as a deterrent.”
While Eytchison was helping to keep the Cold War from heating up, his wife was at home with their kids, celebrating birthdays and attending Little League games. Eytchison says being away from his family was hard, but that he needed to put his country first. “To serve your country, you have to give up certain things,” he says, also matter-of-factly. “You leave your family at home. That’s what our guys in Iraq and Afghanistan are doing.”
The admiral should know, as the youngest of his three sons is in Afghanistan, working in Navy intelligence.
In 1976, the Navy tapped Eytchison to be the senior member of the Atlantic Fleet Nuclear Propulsion Examining Board. Then, in 1979, he served on the staff of President Carter’s commission on the accident at Three Mile Island. When asked if he met the president, the admiral says yes; when asked what Carter was like, Eytchison says, “He’s a nice guy.”
Next, Eytchison assumed command of Submarine Squadron Six in Norfolk, Va., then in 1980 reported to Washington as head of Submarine Officer Personnel Distribution and director of Nuclear Power Personnel Programs, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. After a promotion to flag rank in 1982, he became director of the Attack Submarine Division and coordinator of the Attack Submarine Programs.
In 1985, Eytchison assumed duties in Naples, Italy as commander of Submarine Group Eight; NATO submarine commander in the Mediterranean; commander, Submarine Force, U.S. Sixth Fleet; and commander, ASW Forces, U.S. Sixth Fleet. In 1987, he returned to the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations to serve as director of the Strategy, Plans and Policy Division. He assumed duties in 1988 as director of Strategic Target Planning and was promoted to the rank of vice admiral. In this position, he advised Dick Cheney, then secretary of defense, on strategic force levels.
Leafing through the pages of his memoir, Eytchison points to a photo in which he’s making a presentation to Bush, Dan Quayle, Cheney, Colin Powell and several other officials. “Cheney had asked me to put together a study group to determine what we needed in terms of nuclear weapons,” he says.
Eytchison retired in 1991 after more than 33 years of active duty. His awards and decorations include the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, Legion of Merit with four gold stars, Commendator of the Naval Merit Order of the Republic of Brazil, Meritorious Service Medal with one gold star, Navy Commendation Medal with one gold star, Joint Service Commendation, Navy Unit Commendation, Meritor-ious Unit Commendation, Navy Expeditionary Medal, National Defense Service Medal with one bronze star and Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal.
After retiring, Eytchison was trained under the sponsorship of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations at Virginia Power Company’s Surry Power Station. He then moved to the Chattanooga area and joined the Tennessee Valley Authority as senior vice president of nuclear operations, and was responsible for the operation of the Sequoyah and Browns Ferry nuclear stations as well as preparing the Watts Bar nuclear station for operation. In 1994, he became an independent management consultant to the nuclear power and nuclear fuels industries.
Eytchison laughs as he says he doesn’t have any clients today, nor does he want any. Instead, he’s content to serve in various volunteer capacities throughout his community. Although the list of organizations to which he contributes his time and energy adds several more paragraphs to his biography, he’s proudest of his work with Kiwanis, the Rotary Club, the Boy Scouts, his church and Bible in the Schools, a program that pays instructors in the Hamilton County public school system to teach the Bible as literature.
“I’ve tried to be as active as possible locally because I was unable to do that before,” he says. “So, I’m a ruling elder at our church, Signal Mountain Presbyterian, and president of the Cherokee Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America.”
In addition, Eytchison was with Kiwanis for ten years before leaving that group to join the Rotary, where he serves on the scholarship committee.
Eytchison has earned his rest, and he’s taking it – in small increments. For example, he and his wife, Pat, go to Italy twice a year for at least one month. “It’s wonderful. We know all of our neighbors,” he says, adding that he and Pat are taking their oldest granddaughter to Italy in May.
Despite having spent so much of his life abroad, Eytchison is content to stay put in the city he calls home the other ten months of the year. “We love the people here and the natural setting. The spirit in this city to make it a better place is strong. It’s unlike anything we’ve seen,” Eytchison says.
If an artist were to paint a portrait of Eytchison, he’d have to use broad strokes to allow viewers to gain an adequate sense of scale. For instance: He sacrificed many things to serve his country, he kept his cool for more than three decades of almost constant tensions with the Soviet Union and its allies and he’s continuing to give of himself to others in his retirement. He’s lived, as his memoir says, a great life – and he’s continuing to do so.
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